Click to read the original text for details Currently, community marketing that has formed business models can be roughly divided into three realms. Those that have not formed models or are overly personalized are not included. The First Realm: Harvesting Marginal Groups – Enjoying Community Dividends but Ultimately Ruining the Community. The Second Realm: The Communalization of Community Commerce – Warm Community Connections Become a Commercial Addition. The Third Realm: Enhanced Connection and Relationship Transfer Without Marketing Traces – Communities Integrate into Mainstream Commerce, Becoming the Router of Business, Achieving Seamless Community Marketing. -01- The First Realm: Harvesting Marginal Groups Community marketing has been severely misunderstood, starting with WeChat business (Weishang). WeChat business almost destroyed the public's goodwill toward community marketing, causing mainstream commerce to fear it, refuse to participate, or even avoid mentioning it. WeChat business is the revival and amplification of multi-level direct selling (pyramid schemes) through communities. Its basic characteristics are: First, it mainly targets massive marginal groups, tempting them with the breakthrough of life dilemmas and using the success of a few early harvesters as a model. Because marginal groups are huge and have no position in the traditional commercial system, they can quickly form massive scale. Second, "semi-acquaintances" and strangers form multi-level communities. According to Dunbar's number, the limit of stable social acquaintances is 148 people, but 148 people are unlikely to generate commercial value, so WeChat business involves many "semi-acquaintances" or strangers, forming multi-level communities. Although community technology does not allow more than three levels, management can be multi-level. Because it is multi-level, it can accommodate massive marginal groups. Third, WeChat business is not the marketing logic of brand owners but retail logic. Retail logic is "selling different products to the same person," so the supply chain in the WeChat business system must change frequently, and a single product is hard to sell continuously. Brand owners need stable channels and sales relationships. WeChat business is a highly unstable commercial system. Most people gain nothing from it, and some even end up "friendless" because it requires a "thick face" and not minding disturbing others' normal lives. However, the WeChat business system evolves quickly, methods are constantly updated, and names keep changing, such as social e-commerce, new retail, and now trending toward private domain traffic. In 2020, WeChat business collapsed. The fatal blow to the WeChat business system should be live streaming. In the future, communities will no longer have WeChat business-type business models. Harvesting marginal groups will return with new technologies in the future because these people always exist. But these people ruin whatever they touch. -02- The Second Realm: The Communalization of Community Commerce The second business model to harvest communities is the platform. In previous years, it was Pinduoduo; now it is community group buying. Pinduoduo only used communities as a one-time traffic entrance, then quickly platformized new customers. This is an important reason for Pinduoduo's rapid growth. Community group buying leverages the communities of community stores. The characteristic of community stores is: acquaintances are also regular customers. The hottest form of community commerce communalization is community group buying, where offline stores use communities to form group buying systems. Before community group buying became popular, the communalization of community stores had already been completed. Compared to the "semi-acquaintance" communities of WeChat business, the acquaintance communities of community group buying have two major characteristics: First, the living radius overlaps with the commercial radius. Having the same living radius makes people acquaintances; having the same commercial radius makes them regular customers. Second, the community is characterized by: cleanliness and warmth. Because the living radius overlaps with the commercial radius, no one dares to act recklessly or over-commercialize. Therefore, community communities not only do not disturb residents but also facilitate strong interaction among acquaintances. Cleanliness means not disturbing; warmth means interaction and mutual help among acquaintances. Community communities have dual traffic. Communities are incremental, while stores have existing traffic. Existing traffic dilutes costs, and the gross profit from incremental traffic is net profit. After the baptism of community group buying, [store + community] has become standard. At the same time, it means that the community dividend on the B-side has been fully released. However, community communities follow platform logic, different from retailers' retail logic and brand owners' marketing logic. -03- The Third Realm: Enhanced Connection and Relationship Transfer Because WeChat business communities have too much commercial trace and disturb people, true community marketing requires erasing commercial traces as much as possible. This is marketing that moistens things silently and leaves no trace, the highest realm of business. Moreover, when discussing community marketing, we cannot only talk about the community element; communities must integrate with mainstream commerce. Communities integrate into many marketing elements, forming a marketing system. The value of communities is not direct transaction but a lever and router in the marketing system. My functional definition of community is enhanced connection and relationship transfer. Enhanced connection refers to the enhanced connection between B and C; relationship transfer refers to people with strong community relationships transferring their relationships to others for commercial use. The third realm has three keywords: KOC, scenario experience, and cloud store. B-side communities have been fully commercialized with little potential. The most commercially valuable people now are KOCs, and KOCs have an amplification effect between B and C, acting as routers of connection. Therefore, KOCs have the ability to enhance connection. Thus, the core of community marketing now is to find enough KOCs. KOCs have strong relationships, but how can their value be fully utilized? It requires relationship transfer, and it must be voluntary. The method is a scenario system, forming strong cognition. Strong cognition is the premise of relationship transfer. KOCs have strong relationships, and scenario experience has strong cognition, but how to commercialize? It requires a platform for anytime transactions: the cloud store. KOC is the core target of community marketing, scenario experience is the implementation measure, and cloud store is the transaction platform. This is a complete customer group marketing system. -04- Community Marketing Keyword 1: KOC A leading company in the industry had thousands of salespeople each pulling groups and spreading good content, but the effect was extremely poor. Because community marketing has a key premise: strong offline relationships. The era of harvesting communities is over; without strong C-side relationships, the value of communities is limited. Everyone has communities now; it's standard for modern people. So, talking about pulling groups now is meaningless for community marketing. Or rather, to do community marketing now, you don't need to pull or build groups because everyone already has their own communities. At the same time, communities without strong offline relationships are hard to generate commercial value. However, different people's communities have different values. The community value of B-side (terminals, retail) has basically been fully utilized, already used in the second realm. Moreover, some B-side now "hold communities for sale," turning from public domain traffic to commercial domain traffic. So, the B2C path of communities has no mining value. So, whose communities still have value now? My experience suggests KOC. The business logic is B→KOC→C. The value of KOC communities is "enhanced connection." Adding a KOC between B and C is an amplifier that can connect more C-side, so KOC is enhanced connection. Let me emphasize: What is community marketing? People are channels, relationships are traffic. The difference between KOC and KOL is: KOL is media (communication), KOC is a channel. KOC is not a mini version of KOL; their values and uses are completely different. KOC has dual attributes. First, KOC is a user, a C-side; second, KOC has channel value, a bridge influencing more C-side. What kind of person is a KOC? Roughly four elements: strong relationships (many acquaintances), love to try new things, love to share (enthusiastic communication), and professionalism (can teach more professionally). Individual KOCs have little value; when KOCs form density, value increases. For example, if a county has 50 KOCs, it can cover the entire county. Why form density? Because density creates cross-coverage. The value of cross-coverage is cross-validation. When a person receives the same information from multiple channels, they believe it more. -05- Community Marketing Keyword 2: Scenario Experience KOCs have influence, so how to utilize their strong relationships? The premise is scenario experience. Through a scenario system, KOCs are convinced and willingly do "relationship transfer," that is, letting others use their strong relationships. Why does scenario experience have such a big effect? First, let's talk about scenarios. Products are functions; scenarios are life. Then, experience is the strongest cognition. Combining scenario and experience allows KOCs to form strong cognition. There are many cognitive means, such as advertising and content communication, but experience is the strongest. One experience is better than a hundred media communications. But experience has low efficiency, which is a contradiction. Therefore, experience is a cognitive means that cannot be widely promoted, but it is feasible for B-side, KOLs, KOCs, and big C, as the numbers are not too large. It is the strong cognition of scenario experience that makes KOCs willing to do relationship transfer. Because KOCs feel this is a valuable thing for acquaintances and friends, not simple commercial interests. -06- Community Marketing Keyword 3: Cloud Store A cloud store is not a micro mall. The logic of a micro mall is B2C. The logic of a cloud store is B2B2C. WeChat business often makes transactions grand to attract more followers. KOC communities should be silent, so the cloud store is the best transaction platform. Based on our experience, the best community transaction scenario is: offline cognition, community push, cloud store ordering. This is a marketing system where community is just one link, and a link with less obvious commercial traces. Using people as channels is risky for KOCs. Only by making community marketing traceless can commercial value be amplified. The three realms of customer group marketing mentioned above each have their own business entities. WeChat business follows retail logic. Therefore, brand owners become suppliers to WeChat business, with low participation. Community group buying follows platform logic, and brand owners and distributors still become supply chain, with low participation. It is the third realm that truly allows communities to flourish among brand owners and agents, penetrating the entire channel chain. The value of communities is enhanced connection and relationship transfer, not directly pulling people to earn small money. KOC, scenario experience, and cloud store – these three keywords seem unrelated to communities, but they are precisely the marketing means and tools that empower community marketing. Source: Teacher Liu's Digital New Marketing (ID: liuchunxiong1964), Author: Liu Chunxiong Important Conference Announcement! 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