Original by Ren Xiaodong | Rubik's Cloud Sales 2018 Article #6: The Logic of Communities in Cloud Marketing Models First Principles of Community Marketing First Principles of Community Marketing: It's a symbiotic, mutual-following relationship, not one of exploitation Marvel's Venom premiered on November 9th, and I made a point to see it. I think the best relationship, as depicted in the film, is that between Venom and the investigative journalist—a relationship of mutual growth and mutual support, where each is the other's advocate, protector, provider, and promoter, voting with their money. What we (fans) like is what you (the host) like = the vehicle provided, which could be a product, an idea, or even a physical presence. Just as corn projects onto Li Yuchun, and the emotional drink of literary youth is Jiang Xiaobai, we are all successors to communism. Behind every Marvel superhero, there is a group of people who love them—this is called user stratification. Therefore, the symbiotic and mutual-following relationship determines our starting point for understanding community marketing. Under the premise of consumer sovereignty, the relationship between brand companies or community operators and other members is equal and egalitarian. So, if you treat community marketing as a tool or use channel thinking, you'll basically kill it. The logic here is: I like you, I admire you, you're my cup of tea, and only then am I willing to open up and play in the community, willing to play together. It's the users who "employ" the brand, not the brand being consumed by users. If the operator is aloof, pretentious, coercive, or purely exploitative, with a two-faced approach, there can be no common output. This is also the fundamental reason I've observed many basic and influence circles being played to death. Because all community connections and operations are decentralized; only after the community has shared values and output does it become centralized. So to summarize, these insights are about whether you have fan thinking. Let me digress and share my thoughts and understanding on community building. Content Mindset for Responding to Change Since I started engaging with the topic of communities in 2013, I've directly participated in and planned the operations of several communities and their commercialization. I've categorized them: one type is brand-side 2B and 2C community operations, another is channel platform 2B and 2C community operations, and another is industry self-media community 2B operations. I've practiced across various channel modules, from media to channels, with both successes and many pitfalls. After years of practice, observation, and operation, I've concluded that community marketing is a standard configuration for business operations; it's a standard part of a company's entire network (heaven, earth, human, and electronic). What is the entire network? I define heaven network as communication, electronic network as B2C+B2B, earth network as offline distributors and direct retail, and human network as F2C or M2C. Here, human network includes both social e-commerce with platform traffic and brand social e-commerce with independent traffic. From this perspective, the integration of cognition, transaction, and relationship is a knife for analyzing marketing and grasping the underlying logic. I'm particularly grateful to Teacher Shi for his book "Connection," which gave me great inspiration. Good marketing thought can string together many marketing elements to form a complete epistemology, methodology, and countless methods. Now that I'm in the consulting and training industry, Teacher Shi Xianlong told me that good consulting is 80% basic knowledge, 15% industry experience and resources, and 5% creativity and personal talent. Now, in the context of mobile internet, our marketing logic has changed significantly, and we need new marketing analysis frameworks. From another angle, this is a change in our new business model, a change driven by the demand chain driving the supply chain. So, I've also summarized a personal internal mindset for adapting to such changes: connect, integrate, empower, symbiosis, and fission. Because a person's or company's ability to connect is their business capability. The more resources and channels you connect, and the higher the information density of high potential energy, the bigger the business and career you can build. How IP Operators Can Execute Community Marketing So, how exactly do you carry out deep fan marketing? Brother Dong has three hard-earned suggestions: First: Community-based Survival This strategy answers the question of how operators start. That is, operators must have sufficient potential energy or IP. Anyone or any company wanting to do community marketing should have this concept: community-based survival. Because only through community-based survival can you build your high potential energy, letting others know you are interesting, substantial, and reliable. You must become a super individual or an IP. Where does this understanding come from? It's because we're used to channel-based sales, but have no understanding of social-based sales. The essence of social-based sales is to conduct stratified marketing in "three-dimensional space," using trust chains and recommendation chains to mobilize the 5%-15% pioneer users in the market, leveraging their consumer sovereignty, and using the demand chain to drive the supply chain to create hit products and their popularity. What is "three-dimensional space"? Network, offline, and community. This is a concept mentioned by Teacher Shi Wei in his book "Connection." It's also the three-world theory that Teacher Shi Xianlong mentioned in "New Ways to Play in Mobile Internet," which I strongly agree with. To drive the three worlds or three-dimensional space, operators must become super individuals, super connectors, IPs, and KOLs. A good KOL has four standards: understands the profession, has influence, loves trying new things, loves sharing, and understands social communication and creativity. The premise is that you yourself must first become such a person; otherwise, your potential energy to start community marketing is insufficient. Just kidding, if Teacher Ding Ding weren't a KOL with strong personal IP potential, deep fan marketing probably wouldn't work either. (Note: Teacher Ding Ding is the author of "Deep Fan Marketing" and has created many classic deep fan marketing cases.) So, either become a "god" or "create a god." This definition of god is KOL. Either you're an industry veteran, or a paranoid product manager, or at least you have some interest and passion. For example, Old Tao believes literary youth can change the world; For example, Teacher He Zuqi, deeply rooted in the aquaculture industry, has become the godfather of aquaculture. The methodology for IP building is to have four types of IP: either founder or executive team IP, company brand IP, or product or user IP. A recent example is the top student in the circle—Zhao Bo, founder of New Distribution. Through three years of B2B community operations, industry insights, and deep thinking, he connected with all B2B CEOs nationwide. Through forums, study tours, salons, and self-media, he built the industry's leading self-media, connecting 200,000 brand owners, super distributors, and marketing technology service providers nationwide. Many national brand owners and distributors have undergone deep digital channel management reforms through New Distribution's study tours, forums, and graphic reports, learning from industry best practices and thus gaining new vitality and vigor. Many of New Distribution's super users have followed study tours, salons, and forums for 3-4 consecutive years. At our conferences, at most, 3,000 people stayed for three days without leaving. I myself have also improved my industry cognition through various communities, met a large number of reliable friends and experts, and transitioned from a traditional marketing executive to an internet person. Sometimes, the thickness and height of cognition determine the boundaries of enterprises and life—it's really true. Second: Design Social Products Here, social products have several prerequisites: First, is your product able to make consumers exclaim, and is it explosive enough? It must fit the expectations and needs of this era, the industry, and consumers for your product. For example, the sea bass and sea cucumber I did with Teacher He Zuqi, or Xiao Guan Tea, Jiang Xiaobai, or the hair dryer that went viral recently. The product's aesthetic appeal, interaction methods (one product, one code), channel customization, traffic division by product specifications, and even the factory environment, logistics packaging, and express delivery—all these aspects should be set up with topics and scenarios. For example, Three Squirrels' cute style, wet wipes, and bag clips consider the snacking scenario. Founders without pursuit are stupid hooligans! Not only hooligans, but also stupid!!! So, community marketing can play the roles of connector, amplifier, collector, and algorithm device before, during, and after product design and development. It truly realizes the demand chain driving the supply chain. Therefore, products should have a big product concept, from physical products to spiritual products to sensory experiences—a full social currency design. Community marketing without good products is water without a source, and has no driving force. If community marketing ultimately cannot achieve productization—including outputting physical products (concepts), outputting new connection methods (e-commerce or other company collaborations), and outputting communication spillover (love, emotion, and complex generating a sense of stratification, which through communication (images, text, videos, links, mini-programs) spreads)—it will fall apart like a pile of sand. Of course, the last point: when we review social products that have "failed," they almost always fail on the supply chain. This is also a painful lesson. For example, in the currently hot community group-buying e-commerce, many mines have exploded, and many companies have been forced to close. I think one dimension is that the products they operate are standard products or not the explosive products I mentioned, let alone value products. Most fall into price wars and burning money subsidies, which does not conform to the logic of community marketing. Third: Application of Community Marketing in the Entire Network 1. Application in the Heaven Network The heaven network I define as a company's new communication operations, including placements in new and old media, especially the new media sector. For example, if your target user group likes to gather in a common place (online space, community space, and offline space), you should interact and communicate in those places. The essence of new media marketing is interaction, not push. Where crowds surge, that is media. The recruitment of early fan base users, and the "three-dimensional space" combination needed for event marketing in annual digital marketing, all require identifying, circling, connecting, and igniting target users who fit product consumption/communication/investment, making them the brand's "tap water," "triggers," and "communication nodes." 2. Application in Enterprise Recruitment For example, many self-media like New Distribution, Sales and Market, Sugar Tobacco Wine Weekly, and Cloud Wine Headlines cover users across the large, medium, and small distributor circles. Enterprises can achieve good results through such social community joint recruitment. However, among these peers, New Distribution's community circle has many large distributors who want to transform. Its operations aim to provide solutions for the transformation of super large distributors and digital transformation solutions for brand owners. Therefore, digital marketing technology providers and brand owners have particularly good recruitment results here. 3. Community Marketing Is a Standard for B2B Enterprises Many B2B enterprises have a problem of insufficient new product promotion capability. Through community marketing operations, this problem has been partially solved. For example, Hunan New High Bridge's community marketing is well done. Shanghai Yuanqi Forest Beverage cooperated with New High Bridge's user community, using task settings, red envelopes, copy and images, order links, free trials, and evaluation tasks to successfully achieve distribution in 3,000 stores and new product sell-through. For example, Retail Link used influencer live streaming to sell Kotex sanitary pads, selling in one day what offline distributors would sell in a month. 4. Community Marketing Is Also a Standard for B2C and M2C Models Case 1: Qingfeng Yili—Employees and sales guides are turned into fans. Through community marketing, combined with mini-programs, corporate official accounts, and their own social e-commerce APP, they achieved hundreds of thousands of users online within 2 months, realizing user privatization with a conversion rate as high as 67%. Through this step, new products and long-tail products that previously couldn't sell in offline channels achieved effective sell-through and connection, and the lifetime value of users was tapped. Due to time constraints, I won't elaborate here. Case 2: Deqingyuan Eggs—By capturing and recruiting KOLs from major social e-commerce platforms, organizing visits to farms and bases, they gained an intuitive understanding of the 260+ testing procedures that far exceed EU standards, realizing what truly good chickens and eggs are. At the same time, this brand traffic was brought to social e-commerce platforms like Yunji, Xiaogou Xiansheng, Pinduoduo, Beidian, Chuchu Street, and Xiaohongshu, which the platforms were very happy about. Case 3: As for various WeChat welfare group group-buying Content e-commerce, various experts, and various enterprises all need seed groups, KOL groups, and influence groups. Basically, communication positions + interaction positions + e-commerce positions are a standard configuration. Communication sedimentation may include official accounts, short videos, Douyin, etc.; interaction includes various WeChat groups + QQ groups + salons, forums, etc.; e-commerce includes mini-programs and micro malls. Quickly aggregate social traffic, turn it into independent traffic for the enterprise, achieve user privatization, and long-term customer value. In summary, reflecting on my own practice and research on community marketing, I deeply feel that community marketing is a standard configuration for business operations and also the best way for individuals to build their personal IP. Ren Xiaodong Well-known FMCG B2B e-commerce expert & FMCG marketing expert, a veteran marketer. Formerly Deputy General Manager of Lakala E-commerce Company, General Manager of Community and E-commerce at Xianyu Technology, and Vice President of Brand Marketing at New High Bridge. Author of the community marketing chapter in the monograph "Triggering Demand" In 2015, proposed the concept of "three-dimensional fan marketing," "online three-dimensional fan marketing, offline three-dimensional distribution." In 2018, proposed the concept of "entire network distribution," advocating the establishment of a digital distribution service network for enterprises. Long press the QR code below to communicate with Brother Dong about community marketing -END-