A comprehensive review of the hottest marketing rule in 2018: “social fission”!

If you were to find a keyword for the marketing field in 2018, " social fission " would definitely be the most popular option. In today's era of dramatic marketing changes, social fission has suddenly become one of the rules for acquiring and activating users in the mobile Internet era, and is favored by many mobile products.

The main core of social fission is to be profit-driven and use users' social relationships to achieve product dissemination and sales promotion. Its emergence is inseparable from the popularization of social networks in the era of mobile Internet , but this concept did not appear with the emergence of social networks. Similar models have existed since the non-Internet era.

Social fission in the pre- Internet era

Martin Luther's Uncopyrighted Pamphlets

In 1517, the Vatican introduced "indulgences" under the pretext of repairing churches, saying that as long as a guilty person spent money to buy "indulgences", his soul could go to heaven after death. The religious reformer Martin Luther opposed this practice, so he published a "pamphlet" - "Ninety-five Theses" to oppose the practice of using money to atone for sins.

There was no concept of copyright at that time, and every printer could print any "pamphlet" he thought would sell well. Unexpectedly, this "open source" and copyright-free pamphlet spread like a virus across Europe through copying by printers in Europe, especially in the German city-states. In a March 1518 letter to a Nuremberg printer who had published the German version of his Theses, Luther wrote: “They have been printed and circulated far beyond my expectation.”

Martin Luther sold the pamphlet to booksellers free of copyright (profit), and the booksellers promoted it to the public. As the content was deeply loved by the public, the public bought the pamphlet, which benefited the booksellers, who then promoted the pamphlet to the best of their ability. Therefore, the pamphlet achieved fission from booksellers to the general public, and this method of social fission had been deeply understood by Martin Luther in the Middle Ages, and he became a veritable big V in the Middle Ages.

Group buying in life

In life, group buying can be said to be the prototype of social fission. Some businesses use a model when selling products. For example, if a product costs 100 yuan, if 10 people buy it, the price will be reduced to 80 yuan, and if more than 20 people buy it, the price will be reduced to 50 yuan. Merchants give some of their discounts to customers in exchange for greater sales. Customers who want to buy a product will try hard to promote the product to their relatives and friends in order to get a discount.

This model is the prototype of social fission. However, in the pre-Internet era, everyone’s circle was limited and the cost of promoting products by oneself was high, so this model did not form a large platform-based business.

MLM, insurance recruitment model

In the pre-Internet era, it was pyramid schemes that promoted social fission and turned it into a model. MLM is also called a pyramid scheme. The general pattern is to create a fictitious product (or a real product, which is not important) and get others to buy it. These people then persuade their downlines to buy it. When the downlines buy the product, they will return a portion of the profits to the previous level. Since they can make a profit once they can trick others into buying their products, many people will do their best to trick more people. At the same time, these people will trick their own subordinates and then trick even more people to make a profit.

Because it is driven by interests and the more downlines there are, the more profit one makes, thus forming a pyramid-shaped social fission.

The internal recruitment model of insurance companies actually also utilizes this method. The insurance company gives a certain percentage of the sales performance of a certain person to his or her upline, which will encourage employees to work hard to develop more people to join the company and become their downline. The insurance company's recruitment model was the most mature application of social fission in the non-Internet era. In the Internet era, due to the convenience of social networks and the low cost of online communication, the insurance company's recruitment model has evolved.

Although social fission in the pre-Internet era did not utilize Internet social networks, it still utilized social networks in the real world. However, social fission really started to play a bigger role after the birth of the Internet.

Social fission in the PC era

Mass message to upgrade QQ number: When is Ma Huateng ’s birthday?

"Today is the birthday of Tencent's boss Ma Huateng. If you send this message to five people, you can level up 10. I've tried it and it takes 10 seconds to level up. If you don't believe me, you should try it. There's no harm. Today is the birthday of Tencent's president Ma Huateng. You need to send this message to more than five people. I heard that 10 people tried it. It's true. Send it to five people and check your level after 10 seconds."

I believe that many people who used QQ in the PC era have seen similar words in QQ groups. Just by moving your fingers, you can upgrade your account. Many people saw this sentence and did not distinguish whether it was true or false. With the mentality of "it won't hurt to forward it", they forwarded it to other groups. As long as a few people in other groups believed it and forwarded it to other groups, the information would achieve fission.

In the PC era, QQ was one of the biggest tools for fission marketing, and it was the earliest incubator of social fission in the Internet era.

Weibo: Retweet this post and @ three friends

Sina Weibo was founded in 2009, when mobile Internet was just beginning to take off. Around 2010, when Weibo was at its peak, there was a way of playing that marketers never tired of trying. This method is to post a lottery-related Weibo, requiring users who want to participate in the lottery to follow, forward the Weibo and @ three friends. Retweeting a Weibo post will give it greater exposure. By @ing three friends, your friends will also see it and have a chance to forward it. If you participate in an event and @ your friends, and your friends see it and also participate in the event and @ your friends' friends, this continuous stream of information will allow the Weibo content to multiply in a short period of time.

In 2016, there was an "Ice Bucket Challenge" activity that was very popular. Its rules were that each person poured a bucket of ice water on themselves, and then challenged three people to do the same. This activity spread from the technology circle to the entertainment circle, and then to the general public, achieving fission. This is actually the real-life version of "Retweet this Weibo and @3 friends."

Group buying website

As mentioned above, group buying in the pre-Internet era was the prototype of social fission, and the birth of the Internet era has allowed this model to form a more effective business model . At the end of 2008, Groupon, the originator of group buying websites , was established in the United States. In the following years, the group buying trend spread to China and the war between thousands of groups began.

Meituan (or Dianping), the only one left that has opened the group buying model today, will have discount information on a certain merchant page. These discounts do not require inviting people or waiting for people to buy in a group but can be purchased directly. This is actually quite far from the original form of group buying.

If you have used group buying during the years of the Thousands of Group Buying Wars, you will remember that their pages were roughly like this. There was an original price, a discounted price, and a progress bar on the page. When a certain number of people gathered and the progress bar was full, the group buying price could be realized. In order to enjoy preferential prices, many people would send the page to their friends so that they could buy at low prices. However, the tools used in that era were still QQ, QQ Space, Weibo, Kaixin.com, etc. Group buying websites have moved group buying in real life to the Internet, forming a large business platform with higher efficiency and more integrated capabilities .

Social fission made its first appearance in the PC era. With the rapid arrival of the mobile Internet era, social fission has begun to flourish. WeChat , as the largest mobile social network, has played a huge role in this. Many products have achieved faster and larger-scale social fission with the help of WeChat. The mobile Internet is developing at an extremely fast speed. In just a few years, the social fission mode based on the mobile Internet has evolved many times. Therefore, I divide the social fission in the mobile Internet era into 1.0 era, 2.0 era and 3.0 era for separate discussions.

Mobile Internet Social Fission 1.0: Red Envelope Forwarding Promotes Growth

WeChat Red Packet

The sudden emergence of WeChat red envelopes shocked everyone. For the first time, netizens discovered how powerful the traditional red envelope custom could be when it was empowered by mobile Internet social networks. WeChat Pay also took off with the momentum of red envelopes, and in just a few years it destroyed the defensive wall that Alipay had built over more than ten years. For the first time, the entire industry felt the fear of being dominated by WeChat.

WeChat red envelopes were the first large-scale attempt to achieve fission based on WeChat in the mobile Internet era. It also provided a template for many subsequent companies that tried to copy this fission method. As WeChat red envelopes became more and more popular, the social fission model truly ushered in an explosion.

Didi red envelopes, takeaway red envelopes, take some time...

After the introduction of WeChat red envelopes, many companies found that as long as they gave up a portion of their profits and leveraged WeChat’s social relationships, they could quickly acquire new users , and so this model began to emerge on a large scale. In the early days of car- sharing, Didi, Kuaidi and other ride-hailing apps heavily subsidized drivers and users in order to compete for market share. The subsidies were spread among WeChat friends and groups in the form of red envelopes. Although the companies gave up part of their profits, they attracted more people to become their users. During the subsidy period, the cost of taking a taxi for some users was even lower than taking the subway.

After a market training period, Didi's red envelopes became less and less frequent, and they were replaced by the red envelope war between food delivery services Ele.me and Meituan Waimai.

In addition to the fission of mass red envelopes , the group buying model of Huajia, Huadianshijian, Pinduoduo, etc. is also one of the important ways of social fission.

During the Spring Festival in 2016, Alipay launched an activity to collect the five blessings. Every user who collected all five blessings could share a total of 500 million yuan in cash. When a user was lacking a certain blessing, he or she could ask for it from his or her friends. This activity of Alipay was spread in the form of a string on WeChat, and triggered mutual fission among a large number of friends . Alipay, an app with no social attributes, has created a successful case of social fission on WeChat's territory and enjoyed the social dividends of WeChat.

In the era of social fission 1.0, most fissions were carried out in the form of mass red envelopes, benefits, or group buying . In the 2.0 era, the gameplay of social fission has begun to skirt the classic distribution model.

Mobile Internet Social Fission 2.0: Distribution within three levels

Pinduoduo: The epitome of social fission

When it comes to social fission, one brand that cannot be avoided is Pinduoduo, which is famous for its low prices and coverage of users in low-tier cities. For these users, encouraging users to share various links by giving up their interests does not have much impact on themselves. Therefore, you may often see your relatives and friends in your hometown sharing various links in the circle of friends and various WeChat groups, either hoping that you can help bargain or want to guide you to register and get a share of the profits.

Open the homepage of the Pinduoduo app, and in the navigation bar of less than two screens you will see various registration prompts such as helping to get free orders, cash sign-in, getting cash every day, bargaining for free, and helping with free groups.

You may think that you can get cash by signing in, but you are too young. The page that pops up after signing in is like this, and most of the fission pop-ups are this page. This brings us to distribution within three levels. When you invite a user, once the user successfully registers, the inviter will receive a cash reward. From the page below, it can be seen that Pinduoduo's cost of acquiring a new user is up to 15 yuan (the specific amount is far less than 15), which is of course quite cost-effective.

Share price cuts, share cash, group buy, distribution... For Pinduoduo, there are only ways of fission that you can't think of, and there are no ways of fission that it doesn't have . Pinduoduo can be said to be the epitome of social fission.

NetEase Cloud Classroom : Two-Level Distribution

In the past one or two years, there have been several cases that have been quite impressive, namely the screen-sweeping cases of NetEase Classroom and Sanlian Life Weekly. Most of the cases that have gone viral in the past were about very good content and highly contagious ideas. However, these cases are not particularly creative content, but they have become popular by relying on the two-level distribution model. Taking NetEase Cloud Classroom as an example, its distribution strategy is as follows:

Both primary and secondary distribution can generate profits. This is a mature distribution model, but it controls the distribution path to two levels, skirting the rules. Many people share posters to their friends or groups, not because the pictures are pretty or they agree with the course, but simply to gain profit. Some users who distributed pictures early on earned thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.

In the era of social fission 2.0, traditional distribution models began to be used . Global Catcher (Global Catcher is divided into three levels: experts, managers, and directors. Both managers and directors need to pull different numbers of people to achieve their goals, and the higher the level, the higher the benefits of pulling each person), Yunji Weidian and the early Little Black Dress all used this method. However, since more than three levels of distribution are suspected of being illegal, distribution on WeChat is generally controlled at two levels. Currently, one level of distribution is the most common, because even two-level distribution will be controversial and may be banned. However, at this stage, being able to make good use of distribution within two levels will already help growth significantly.

Mobile Internet Social Fission 3.0: Social Fission of Traditional Business

In my opinion, the 3.0 era of social fission has just begun. It may be a subversion of the traditional advertising communication model. The core of the 3.0 era is to incorporate traditional business into the social fission of mobile Internet . For example, imagine a restaurant. After user A finishes his meal, the restaurant will give him a red envelope. A transfers the red envelope to B, who receives the red envelope and also comes to the restaurant to eat. And once B comes to the restaurant to eat once, A will get a certain percentage of the rebate. Traditional businesses generally don't think of this level.

Lukkin coffee: Free coffee

Coffee is a traditional business. If we look at the emerging Luckin Coffee from a traditional perspective, it has achieved social fission, which is commendable. Any user can invite other friends after entering the APP, and other friends and he can get a free cup of coffee . A typical scenario is that user A shares a free coffee link in the circle of friends, user B clicks on it and fills in his mobile phone number, and both parties get a cup of coffee. I have seen Luckin coffee shared on WeChat Moments many times, and most people probably share it for the chance to get free coffee.

Similarly, car rental is also a traditional business, but China Auto Rental has also added the element of social fission into it. When a user invites a friend, and after the friend registers and takes his first ride, China Auto Rental will give the old user three 20-yuan special car coupons as a reward. The more you invite, the more you get. This strategy is in line with Luckin Coffee, as their marketing team is the same.

Main features of social fission

Social fission, as a marketing method born with the rise of mobile Internet, has experienced an explosion in the past one or two years. It has many ways to play, but its core features are relatively simple.

1. Transfer benefits to users who participate in fission. Take out part (or all) of the advertising fees previously given to the media and give it to users, encouraging them to distribute it to other users, thereby greatly expanding exposure, promoting sales, and promoting the growth of new users.

2. Spread through social networks. As mentioned earlier, the fission form existed before the emergence of the Internet. It was spread among people and in their social interactions. The birth of mobile Internet social networks has provided a natural breeding ground for this model, allowing social rifts to spread faster and at a lower cost.

Red envelopes, group buying, bargaining, distribution... There are thousands of ways to create social fission, but none of them can escape the two settings above.

Among the ten WeChat projects with the highest valuations in the past five years, most of the marketing tactics are related to fission marketing (Image source: WeChat ecosystem has great opportunities, Pinduoduo is just the beginning).

If social fission is integrated into traditional business on a large scale, that is, entering the fission 3.0 era, it is likely to create a subversive way of communication, which will greatly improve the marketing efficiency of traditional business. Of course, the premise is that there are no problems with these traditional businesses themselves.

The author of this article @寻空 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games