A new way to monetize private domain traffic - WeChat live streaming

Amid the epidemic, how to monetize private domain traffic has become a headache for operators. With the continuous adjustment of WeChat policies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to operate private domain traffic in the previous way. What should we do next? For those who want to monetize private domain traffic, WeChat Live may be an opportunity.

The 2020 Spring Festival is the most special one in the past 30 years. Over the years, I believe that many people have spent the longest time at home with their families only during this year's Spring Festival. At the same time, seeing the real situation of the epidemic every day, I feel a strong sense of crisis and anxiety.

I saw a news report a few days ago that a company laid off 90% of its employees on the first day of resuming work. As a company boss, I especially understand the company's approach, because only if the company survives can it recruit everyone back. But for employees, this sudden news of layoffs means that so many individuals or families will start to struggle financially. If they look for a job at this time, I'm afraid they will be unprepared.

Under the epidemic, in addition to self-isolation, people around me are worried about how the company can survive and how to make money to support themselves. Many friends around me did not get full wages in February, and it is also a mystery whether the year-end bonus promised before the New Year can be paid on time.

At the same time, a few days ago a friend asked me how to monetize private domain traffic. I asked him how many users he had accumulated, and he said about 100,000. For a KOL with 100,000 directly accessible traffic, it is indeed a pity that he has not yet monetized it. Everyone is anxious, but the reasons for their anxiety are different. Today's article would like to continue the previous article on private domain traffic and talk about how private domain traffic can be monetized through WeChat live streaming.

1. From traffic to social relationships

Currently, WeChat has more than 1 million friends, and the number of friends exceeds 5,000. In the open class at the beginning of the year, WeChat announced that the limit on the number of friends to 5,000 would be lifted. However, friends after 5,000 will not be able to see the content of the Moments. In fact, WeChat had a policy of diverting accounts with more than 3,500 friends in the early years. Although the limit of 5,000 friends has been lifted, I believe that most people will still apply for another WeChat account after 5,000 friends. After all, Moments is an important distribution channel.

This policy has to be said to have ushered in a new era for private domain traffic, from the early era of enclosure. With WeChat's various restrictions on active and passive addition of people, it is becoming increasingly difficult to operate private domain traffic through the method of rapidly adding fans and attracting people. This era tests the operator's ability in content operation, community operation and user operation.

Since it is traffic, the basic idea is the more the better, and try to monetize it as much as possible. Therefore, in the initial stage, many companies and private domain traffic operators will control thousands or tens of thousands of WeChat accounts, each WeChat account with thousands of people, and they all claim that they are able to reach tens of millions of private domain traffic at any time.

Since the volume is so large, it is naturally difficult to operate the relationship accurately. Most of the time, it is still simple and crude to use advertising and promotional activities to directly convert users. In the early days, many users did not regard these ads as advertisements, but as recommendations from friends, so the effect was still good.

But users are not stupid. After seeing many advertisements, they will understand that this is a marketing trick that will not convert. Moreover, many people have never chatted with them and do not know each other. To maintain a large traffic pool in a centralized manner, some special means are often required, which increases the risk of their accounts being blocked. In June last year, WeChat blocked 30 million marketing accounts overnight.

It’s not that the previous methods of acquiring and monetizing private traffic were ineffective, but as user awareness increased, the conversion rate of the original advertising method gradually declined. Of course, as long as there is enough traffic, conversion can still be achieved, but relying on old capital is not a long-term solution. The biggest change in private traffic 2.0 is the focus on "social relationships" and "repeat purchases", treating every user in the private traffic pool as a treasure, and operating the social relationship with customers as the most important asset.

Every traffic is a "friend" rather than a customer. From a businessman's perspective, the first purpose of treating customers is to make money, and then other things. But the first purpose of treating friends is to help, to help others save money, to help others find the products they want. When you are not selling goods, you can occasionally chat with them to see how they are doing and if there is anything you can help solve. In this way, relationships will be established, trust between you and your customers, and their loyalty to you will naturally be established. After all, we have many channels to access information, and we can buy things or services from anyone, but why would we choose you?

In addition to the product itself and the price, there is also an emotional connection. Some users may later become agents and are willing to help sell products and make money. Coupled with the relationship of doing business together, this connection is even closer.

2. Traffic monetization tool - WeChat Live

It has to be said that e-commerce live streaming is a big trend in 2019. An anchor can sell hundreds of millions of goods in 4 hours of live streaming. In comparison, WeChat has 1 billion traffic and the average usage time per person is 85.8 minutes. It has been integrated into our lives, work, communication, and payment. Almost all of us use it. Social relationships are so strong, and private domain traffic is fully utilized by micro-businesses. What kind of sparks will be produced if e-commerce live streaming is combined with the empowerment of WeChat social relationships?

1. After a long period of internal testing, the game starts with a half-hidden face

When talking to friends, many of them still don’t know about WeChat Live, because there is no corresponding entrance in WeChat, and in Zhang Xiaolong’s speech at Tencent Open Class, there was no mention of WeChat Live’s strategic planning for the new year. So why is WeChat Live still so secretive after it conducted an internal test of the demand a while ago?

Currently, WeChat live streaming does not refer exclusively to a certain platform. Any live streaming on the WeChat mini-program can be called WeChat live streaming. The authority to enable live streaming is currently in the hands of major service providers. Therefore, it is not difficult to see on the market that many WeChat live streaming service providers and small platforms have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, with prices ranging from 299 yuan/lifetime, 399 yuan/lifetime, to 599 yuan/technical service fee.

I personally understand that WeChat is still in the stage of various experiments and models for live streaming. Whether this business model can work remains to be seen, but WeChat live streaming's own social attributes and the advantages of the WeChat ecosystem will inevitably make it another dark horse in the e-commerce live streaming circle to seize market share in 2020.

2. E-commerce live streaming + social networking

Some people may instantly think of themselves and wonder how it would help their business if they were to enable WeChat live broadcast permissions. It goes without saying that companies or individuals who have their own private traffic can use live streaming tools to better conduct their business, and there are many combinations of WeChat live streaming + micro-business, WeChat live streaming + e-commerce, WeChat live streaming + investment promotion, etc. Among these models, those who make money have an underlying driving force - social + live streaming + e-commerce , which I think is the core of WeChat live streaming.

WeChat's natural social attributes determine that its underlying logic must be based on social interaction, coupled with live streaming tools, in order to enable customers to better find good products. From the original people looking for goods, goods looking for people to people recommending goods, there is a layer of trust based on social relationships that acts as a lubricant in the middle. Coupled with the direct sales model of e-commerce, the path of social monetization came into being.

Social e-commerce faced great challenges in 2019, and many platforms were punished and struggled to survive, but the model of social + e-commerce is still feasible, otherwise micro-business would not have existed for so many years and still be so successful. In addition to the reasons of the epidemic, both traditional e-commerce and other forms of online e-commerce models will usher in a new spring. I believe that WeChat live broadcast based on social attributes will also usher in a new beginning.

3. Everyone is a streamer

Lizhi FM, an audio radio station that proposed that everyone can be a host a few years ago, has already been listed. Although Taobao Live, Kuaishou, and Douyin, which started video live streaming earlier, are also saying that everyone can be a host, objectively speaking, there is still a certain threshold to actual operation. It requires mastering certain skills and importing traffic.

As the initial bonus period has passed, if you want to gain traffic on such short video and live broadcast platforms, you need not only passion but also certain content planning and post-production capabilities.

WeChat live streaming is based on social attributes. As long as anyone has a mobile phone and WeChat, they can activate the live streaming permission and start the live streaming journey. As long as you have at least zero WeChat friends, you can do WeChat live streaming. For example, the first live broadcast of the parenting app "Xiao Xiao Bao Ma Ma" was relatively successful. It attracted 131,000 viewers in 1 hour and 40 minutes, sold more than 15,000 pieces, and achieved sales of 2.16 million. The page views of the "Xiao Xiao Bao Ma Ma" e-commerce mini program exceeded 658,000.

Everyone is an anchor, which means that everyone can serve as a transit station for products, gradually reducing the links between manufacturers and consumers. We must know that every time a link is reduced, the price consumers get the product will be lower. Therefore, while everyone saves their own purchase costs, they also help their friends around them save certain costs. The link from goods to people will be smoother and warmer.

3. Trends of WeChat Live Broadcasting in 2020

Although WeChat Live entered the market a little late, WeChat's 1 billion highly active users are beneficial to public accounts, companies and individuals with highly vertical and accurate fans. As the opening rate of public accounts is relatively low, WeChat live streaming is a new trend and opportunity. There are also some companies and individuals with private domain traffic. Even if such accounts do not have a large number of fans, they are vertical and accurate enough, and user stickiness is often large, so the effect of bringing goods is also very good.

Tencent Live leverages the precise user base accumulated over the years by public accounts and individuals, as well as the precise segmentation of the population through communities and friend circles, and credibility endorsement, which can effectively shorten the path to transaction completion. It provides a brand new opportunity for merchants, especially those who have not caught up with the traffic dividends of Kuaishou, Taobao Live and Douyin. They must seize the bonus period of WeChat Live.

As it stands, those businesses and individuals who have been accumulating private domain traffic are most likely to benefit from WeChat live streaming. If they use it well, they can achieve twice the result with half the effort and quickly realize the benefits. As for the explosion of WeChat live streaming, it is still in the stage of enclosure and there is still a bonus period. For those who want to monetize private domain traffic, don’t be too eager for quick success. For businesses, it is only a matter of time. The sooner you act, the sooner you can gain market share.

The epidemic presents opportunities for individuals and companies that have private traffic that has not yet been monetized.

Author: Wang Yanfei

Source: Jianfa Operation