After watching "Dying to Survive", I realized this is how social marketing should be done!

As an operator , I have built many communities and also messed up many of them, but I still haven’t found the so-called methodology. This article just wants to share with you the problems encountered during the practical operation.

1. Why is it so difficult to build a community?

First, the group is a mess . The members of the group are busy and irrelevant, the topic is far away, the information flow is of low value, they advertise, break the rules, and problems arise frequently; even the group owner is helpless in the face of various disputes and even conflicts within the group. The group initiator felt that he was an idiot for making the group so messy. People who join the group also feel like they are stupid. Why did they join such a crappy group in the first place?

Second, the group was not disbanded when it should have been . After the value of the group has been released, people are reluctant to disband the group, and eventually the group becomes an advertising group or a dead group. It is important to have a good beginning and a good end. Even if it is a lifelong group, it sometimes needs to be changed. When changing the group, tell everyone that they can join the new group as long as they contact the group owner. Some group members are too lazy to even respond to this, which means that this member has given up on the group, not that the group doesn't want him. Everyone grows up. Members who abandon the group probably think that the group has no value to them anymore, and there is no point in forcing them to stay.

Third, there is no way to commercialize it . The first feeling of building a community is to do charity . In order to increase the activity of the community, we work hard to output. But for operators, it is impossible to do things for free for a long time. All "altruism" must return to "self-interest". There are currently two main directions for community monetization: one is to charge members directly. Another is that members do not pay directly, but other businesses pay on their behalf, which is equivalent to traditional advertising.

Fourth, the characteristics of the community are not clearly understood . I have read a passage about groups in The Crowd before, and I found it quite interesting. People in a group have two common characteristics: one is that each person's personality disappears, and the other is that their emotions and thoughts are focused on the same thing. Every community is a group. We understand the principle most of the time, but there are many difficulties in practice. It seems impossible to make everyone's personality disappear with just one point.

Since the community is so difficult to build, does it mean that we should abandon this area? Of course not! Alibaba has now begun to use social media games and "group battle team red envelopes" to increase customer unit price. The blockchain operation that is on the cusp of popularity also uses the community as an entry point, which means that social media marketing is now on the cusp of popularity.

2. How to do social media marketing well?

So how do we do social media marketing well? The movie "Dying to Survive" was very popular some time ago, and it contained some amazing social media marketing cases . Before starting social media marketing, many of the shots in it also contain a lot of marketing ideas that are worth learning from.

Cheng Yong initially adopted offline sales methods, starting from the hospital registration office, then sweeping every corner of the hospital, and finally making one-on-one "door-to-door" visits. Although all of them ended in failure and he was driven out by the hospital security, their thinking can be said to be very clear. First, choose places where the target group is highly concentrated, and locate in hospitals and places where leukemia patients "live" together. Secondly, grasp the pain points of users’ needs, which are cheap medicine.

But why is it that in the end, not even a bottle of medicine can be sold?

There is only one reason, that is, patients are not sure whether the medicine is genuine. Whether it is Cheng Yong or Lu Shouyi, the first impression they give to users is that they are liars. Trust is very important, especially when we are selling functional products. Compared with Cheng Yong, drug dealer Zhang Changlin did a very good job in this regard. He used the method of breaking the trust between him and the users step by step during the sales meetings.

First, Zhang Changlin disguised himself as an expert. The public generally has a natural trust in experts. Secondly, arrange a lot of helpers on site. These agents are packaged as users who have used the products. They constantly guide the crowd on site, gradually enhancing their trust in the products. Finally, here comes a big promotion, limited time special offer, absolute bargain!

After the guidance in the first two steps, the users were in a state of indecision, and then the killer move came at the end. If Cheng Yong and others hadn't come to disrupt things, from a marketing perspective alone, that marketing campaign would undoubtedly have been a success.

After hitting a wall everywhere, Lu Shouyi thought of a crucial person, the group leader of the patient group - Liu Sihui. A major change began to take place from then on, and Liu Sihui became the key link in opening up the channel . Why does Liu Sihui have such tremendous energy? As mentioned earlier, trust. As the group leader of the patient group, group members must trust her. Liu Sihui is the KOL that is often mentioned in marketing.

How to convince Liu Sihui, the KOL? First, Cheng Yong did not show up, and Lu Shouyi went to persuade him. Because as a patient, Lu Shouyi was more persuasive, and Lu Shouyi and Liu Sihui had met before and were quite familiar with each other. Secondly, when persuading Liu Sihui, Lu Shouyi’s logic was this: cheap price → exactly the same efficacy → I have taken it → your daughter can try it → promote it in the group.

Let the other person know what benefits she can get first, and then tell her what her needs are. Start from the "altruistic" thinking and then return to the "selfish" thinking. Let others see the benefits first, see what they can get , then the probability of being rejected will be much smaller.

Thanks to Liu Sihui’s guidance, the medicine is still the same, the price is still the same, but everyone is willing to buy it! At this time, everyone present has become a community with shared interests. So how do we manage this group well?

First, let group members understand the group rules. When Cheng Yong met for the first time, he directly stated the group rules. We will sell like this in the future. The principle is to keep a low profile. If anything goes wrong, no one will be in trouble.

Second, differentiated operations. Lv Shouyi, Liu Sihui, Meng Hao, and Pastor Liu are both drug sellers (operators) and drug buyers (users). Cheng Yong paid them 3,000 yuan per bottle.

As for other group owners, they are "local opinion leaders" in the community and can influence the fan groups they cover. Cheng Yong gives them a price of 4,000 yuan for the medicine. Ordinary users will need to bear the full price of 5,000 yuan per bottle.

Cheng Yong and his team went from repeated defeats in the beginning to a situation where demand exceeded supply and they made a lot of money. The most fundamental change is that they opened up the QQ community as a breakthrough point and made good use of the advantages of the community.

Third, teamwork and clear division of labor. It is difficult to build a community alone. As the saying goes, everyone has their own expertise and all-rounders are rare. In this movie , their community is divided into five categories: those who are good at business (Cheng Yong), those who have supply channels (Cheng Yong), those who have customers (Lv Shouyi, Liu Sihui), those who are dedicated to their work (Huangmao), and those who understand technology (Pastor Liu knows English). Teamwork is indispensable!

3. Compared with other channels, what are the advantages of social networks?

First, maximize profits at low cost. Social marketing can be said to be zero-cost and almost everyone can do it.

Second, precise fans + precise marketing. Community marketing is a marketing model based on circles and connections. A community is a circle where people with common interests, hobbies and purposes gather together. In other words, your community is filled with users who have common needs, which are what we often call targeted fans.

Third, efficient circle communication. Social marketing is centered on two-way interactive communication with the target audience and is more effective than one-way communication. Traditional WeChat marketing is one-to-one and is not very efficient because it requires communication with each customer one by one. The community can achieve one-to-many communication, increasing efficiency by N times.

Fourth, accumulate fans. In the past business model, after the product was sold, there was no relationship between the seller and the buyer. The buyer would only contact the seller if the buyer wanted to return the product or there was a quality problem. But by using social marketing and putting people who have used the product in a WeChat group , you can retain fans.

Although it is a little difficult to maintain a community in the beginning, the process is very worthwhile. When you maintain the community well, it means you have acquired a large number of stable and high-quality customers. Even if you do not advertise in the future, your business will still be booming. This is difficult to achieve with other marketing models. When competition among similar products becomes increasingly fierce, and when users become increasingly immune to advertisements in their Moments , building a community becomes particularly important.

Fifth, fission. At the end of the film, Chen Sihui spread the information through QQ groups, and in less than a minute it was forwarded by many group owners of fellow patients. At that time, the screen of the cinema was full of information from various QQ groups. At that moment, I felt what community fission is.

Viral spread has led to a "boom" in the number of users. This operation is the same as what we now call fission, except that now fission requires some additional benefits, otherwise no one will be willing to spread it secondary. For example: In Alipay ’s bonus activity, if you invite a user to receive a red envelope and make a purchase, you can get two bonuses. The more invitations you make, the more rewards you get. Ele.me has launched a rewarded red envelope for recommendation. If you invite a new user to place an order, you will receive a 5 yuan cash red envelope. The more users you invite, the more rewards you will get.

This is a very interesting tactic used in social marketing in the movie. However, analysis is one thing and practice is another. If you want to master social media marketing, you need to do much more than that. Traffic generation , group management tools , group maintenance, group advertising, how to convert ... there are too many details to consider.

The analysis is only made from the perspective of commercial interests; human nature should not be analyzed so starkly. Just like when Cheng Yong sold drugs for the second time, his motive was no longer for money. His behavior was noble and great and should no longer be measured from the perspective of commercial interests.

Source: Sea