This article is reproduced from Social Talent.
Part 1: Essential Reading List on Communities
"Digital connectivity weakens the individuality of consumer behavior, while group characteristics grow stronger. As a result, mass marketing has lost its former effectiveness. If marketing targets do not shift toward 'communities that share information internally, act quickly, and are unruly,' it will be difficult to gain attention."
This is a highly inspiring introductory read. You may need two days to finish it and a month to ponder it. The book contains many interesting discussions, such as digital connectivity, kindred spirits and predators, brand preference, and more. Of course, for marketers, the most important thing is the book's tireless provision of practical advice and methodologies for brand community operations.
Recommendation Index: Many stars
"A successful marketing must cater to the tribal consciousness of our agricultural era deep in our hearts."
The value of this book varies from person to person. Overall, its ideological value outweighs its practical value, and it may greatly impact your thinking. If you can delve into the highly innovative cases mentioned in the book, you might gain a deeper understanding of how Steve Jobs achieved Apple's success.
Godin is a marketing master with disruptive ideas. Here is his brilliant TED talk—The Tribes We Lead. Before reading this book, you might want to watch this 17-minute video.
Recommendation Index: Three Steve Jobs
"The crowd is anonymous! Anonymous people do not need to take responsibility for anything they do. Because they are anonymous, they cannot be accused."
The book is full of profound and thought-provoking sentences. It is an exciting read because it constantly digs into your inner desire for groups! The magic of this book lies in making you understand individuals and communities through deep self-reflection. Why is the Xiaomi model described as 'winning the world with the masses'? After reading "The Crowd," you will have your own understanding.
Recommendation Index: Five Xiaomis
"Jury theorem: Even if each individual has only a 60% chance of getting the correct answer, in a group of 17 people, the chance that the majority is correct rises to 80%; in a group of 45 people, the chance rises to 90%."
Who says the crowd is just a mob? The author clearly states his position. Groups can be 'rational' and 'perfect.' As a versatile scientist spanning physics, chemistry, biology, and philosophy, the author presents many novel theories that refresh your worldview, with solid evidence and vivid examples.
Recommendation Index: 1.5 Crowds
"Behind the flying pig, the sense of participation is the 'typhoon.'"
Even if this book is not recommended, you will read it anyway.
Recommendation Index: One Lei Jun
"Today's customers want their choices to reflect their values, and they want to interact with companies in their preferred language and form. This shift requires companies to re-establish the value of 'crowd creation,' which defines value based on human experience rather than past emphasis on product features and processing in the value chain."
Community and crowdsourcing are two inseparable concepts. A community with emotional connections also needs 'crowd creation' to build value/interest connections. The rich cases in the book give you a concrete understanding of crowdsourcing. Perhaps after reading this book, you will try to solve your own problems through crowdsourcing.
Recommendation Index: Human Cubed
"Educated people with free time, rich knowledge backgrounds, and a strong desire to share—when their time is pooled together, it creates a huge social effect. 'Cognitive surplus' is one of the greatest dividends that internet users in the new era give to internet practitioners."
It can be said that it is precisely the 'cognitive surplus' that made Ma Huateng's Tencent empire. In the foreword, Ma Huateng uses the four-dimensional space in "The Three-Body Problem" to describe the future of the internet depicted by Clay Shirky. This shows that this book is not just a business book; if you read it carefully, you might create another four-dimensional Tencent.
Recommendation Index: One Ma Huateng
"We have historically overestimated the value of computer networking and underestimated the value of social networking. So we spent too much time solving technical problems rather than solving the social problems of the people using the software."
This 'greatest thinker of internet transformation' guides you to think about and answer questions like: How do collective actions drive change? Why does Wikipedia succeed? How can people with similar ideas find each other, gather, and cooperate?
Recommendation Index: One Wikipedia
"Although everyone's behavior in society seems chaotic, as a whole, human society operates in an orderly manner. Just like gas molecules in a container, each one seems to move randomly, but when combined, they form a stable pressure, and the trend of gas movement is clear—toward maximum entropy."
Interdisciplinary research often brings new insights. The author explains social group behavior from the perspectives of statistical physics and biochemistry, which may give you a new height in understanding communities. 'Maximization of entropy' is an interesting explanation.
Recommendation Index: 1000 J/K
"The universe follows a mechanical order, that is, God arranged the world. As long as we follow the rules, order naturally exists. If we each do our part and work hard, the world will be balanced."
The universe, ultimate philosophy, complex systems, human social development... This book may seem boring, but it is actually a fascinating biography. The reason for recommendation is complex, but one reason is that its Douban rating is frighteningly high.
Recommendation Index: System difficult to calculate...
Part 2: Concepts Marketers Must Understand About Communities
★ Brand Community
"Brand community" is translated from the English "brand community." Some scholars also translate it as "brand community," "brand tribe," or "brand commonwealth." The English word "community" indeed has the meanings of "community" and "commonwealth," but to distinguish it from the traditional geographical "community" and the political-economic "commonwealth," we tend to translate it as "brand community" to reflect the meaning of "a consumer group organization formed around a brand."
★ Consumption Subculture
Consumers form different consumption subcultures based on their different affiliations. For example, students and teachers belong to the same campus subculture consumption scope, jointly reflecting campus subculture consumption concepts and habits, but they also belong to different consumption subculture circles with their own consumption concepts and behaviors.
★ Swarm Intelligence
Swarm intelligence (Swarm/collection intelligence) comes from the observation of insect groups in nature. The macro-intelligent behavior characteristics exhibited by social organisms through collaboration are called swarm intelligence.
★ Social Network Theory (Structural Holes Theory)
A social network is a collection of multiple social actors and their relationships. For example, for three actors A, B, and C, if A and B are connected, A and C are connected, but B and C are not, then there is a hole between B and C. This structure of relationships among A, B, and C is a structural hole. A is the intermediary of the structural hole. Structural holes provide opportunities for intermediaries to obtain "information benefits" and "control benefits," giving them a competitive advantage over members in other positions in the network.
★ Social Capital
Social capital generally refers to an individual's ability to gain benefits by using their special position in an organizational structure. It generally refers to an individual's relationships with relatives, friends, classmates, fellow townspeople, etc. The higher the benefits one can obtain from these relationships, the higher their social capital.
★ Social Identity
Social identity is defined as: an individual recognizes that they belong to a specific social group, and also recognizes the emotional and value significance that being a group member brings to them. Tajfel's social identity theory distinguishes individual identity from social identity. Social identity is the concentrated embodiment of beliefs, values, and action orientations shared by social members, essentially a collective concept. Compared with interest connections, social identity that emphasizes a sense of belonging is more stable.
★ Brand Attachment Theory
Consumers' attachment to possessions is the psychological possession and decommodification of a specific owned object by an individual or group.
★ Theory of Planned Behavior
Human behavior is the result of deliberate planning. The factors that determine an individual's implementation of a certain behavior include attitude, subjective norms, behavioral control, intention, and actual action.
★ Sense of Community
It is a sense of belonging, that is, community members believe that they are connected to each other and to the entire community, and that their needs can be met through this connection. McMillian and Chavis (1986) believe that when an individual gains membership and influence by joining a group organization, satisfies their own needs, and establishes shared emotional connections with other members, they have a sense of community toward that group organization.
★ Matthew Effect
It refers to the phenomenon of the strong getting stronger and the weak getting weaker. The "Matthew Effect" is contrary to the "balance principle"; it is similar to the "80/20 rule" and is a very important natural law. Ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi once proposed a similar idea: "The way of heaven reduces the surplus to supplement the deficiency; the way of man is different—it reduces the deficient to offer to the surplus."
Part 3: You've Heard Many Principles, How to Operate Your Own Community Well?
Case 1: Jiangxiaobai
Here's what happened: The day before yesterday, I went to drink with Brother Xiaobai. I originally wanted to dig some community operation tips from their brand director, but I drank too much...
Fortunately, I have a decent tolerance for alcohol, and I still remember the first half. Let me restore our private conversation:
Me: "Brother Xiaobai, Jiangxiaobai has so many fans, and many loyal fans actively participate in content creation. You must have a very complete community management mechanism, like that funnel thing. Can you share a few tricks?"
Brother Xiaobai: "It's not that complicated. We always insist on one thing: fun and style. As long as you fit our style, you can play together. Let me tell you, Jiangxiaobai has no membership system, not even an official WeChat group. Why? Because..."
I remember we clinked glasses at this point, and then the food arrived...
I was really hungry at that time...
After three consecutive glasses of Jiangxiaobai, I was slightly tipsy, but I was still clear-headed and immediately returned to the topic: "I heard your marketing team has more than 200 people, and I see that production efficiency is quite high. Those awesome copywriting pieces are being posted to Weibo and WeChat one after another. Is there any unique management method?"
Brother Xiaobai: "We don't have any management method, and we hardly have meetings. We just let them play with users and let users help them solve problems. In fact, many of the copywriting you see is written by users. Of course, the most critical thing here is..."
At this moment, the waiter interrupted: "Sir, let me take this away for you."
I wanted to strangle him on the spot, but I held back: "Okay, take it away."
Brother Xiaobai: "Come on, bottoms up."
Next came astronomy, geography, politics, and glass after glass of Jiangxiaobai...
At this point, I was unconscious, but I still used my last bit of willpower to ask a question I thought was very insightful: "According to effective intelligence, Didi Chuxing values Jiangxiaobai's huge fan base and wants to put codes on 1.92 million bottles of Jiangxiaobai. What kind of cooperation is this? With this trend, is it possible for Jiangxiaobai to become the next entry-level platform?"
Brother Xiaobai: "Huh... huh..."
I passed out...
Case 2: Funiutang
Here's what happened: Last week, while preparing the STC sharing session plan, I saw a post on WeChat Moments from Zhang Tianyi, the handsome guy selling rice noodles:
So I used my innate magnetic uncle-like voice to hit on him,
Roughly saying: "Tianyi, the CEIBS course must have been very rewarding. Can you come to the STC sharing session and do an online sharing? The theme this time is community, and also share your Baman Society."
...
So, we saw Tianyi's article "Read the CEIBS Entrepreneurship Camp in Ten Minutes" published on Funiutang's official WeChat on April 1, and "Walking on Thin Ice: A Letter to Funiutang on Its First Anniversary" on April 4. I strongly recommend everyone to read them.
You've heard many principles, how to operate your own community well?
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