Interact, engage, and co-create “gimmicks never solve real problems, and at best, they can only lead to short-lived spikes in activity. To increase engagement sustainably, you need to solve real problems.
Last week, we (FeverBee) had an in-depth discussion with some brands about their community operations and found that most brand communities are facing the dilemma of declining user engagement and interaction levels.
When member activity is low for a long time, many community operators will fall into anxiety.Instead, try to stimulate user engagement with short-term gimmicks:
- For example, hold a content collection event to select the top ten creators?
- Plan a large-scale prize promotion and set up a “win every 7” message mechanism?
- Encourage members to post questions and offer rewards?
These practices themselves are understandable, but they ultimately fail to touch the essence of the problem. If people don’t participate, the root of the problem is not the lack of eye-catching gimmicks or the fact that users forget that the community exists, but that they don’t really perceive the unique value of the community.
In fact, how to stimulate effective interaction and improve the quality of participation is the core proposition that really needs to be solved. To this end, we (FeverBee) have developed a member motivation model!
Special reminder: Don’t blindly chase engagement data, but explore the best interaction balance. If even basic interactions are difficult to maintain, the member motivation model needs to be revisited.
It is recommended to focus on the left module of the model first.When users lack engagement, they need to pinpoint the following four key sticking points:
- Do users really know that the community exists?
- Do they have a clear understanding of the value of the community?
- Do you believe that communities can actually deliver these values?
- Does the community provide significantly better value than other channels?
Let’s break it down one by one.
1. Do people really know about the existence of the community? If the answer is no, naturally there is no way to participate.
A common misconception is that after sending a community promotion email, WeChat message or text message, we take it for granted:
- Most members open this email
- The person who opened the message remembered the content
The reality is often very different. You need to gradually increase community awareness through continuous operation and precise promotion strategies.
To achieve these three challenges, product managers will only continue to appreciate
Good product managers are very scarce, and product managers who understand users, business, and data are still in demand when they go out of the Internet. On the contrary, if you only do simple communication, inefficient execution, and shallow thinking, I am afraid that you will not be able to go through the torrent of the next 3-5 years.
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Here are four practical tips:
1) Systematic start-up planning
Abandon the extensive model of single reach, and adopt a phased and continuous reach strategy during the community launch period.
Specific promotion methods include:
- Serialize on your brand’s mailing list
- Continued exposure in newsletters
- Establish cooperation with industry KOLs
- Hold exclusive community drainage activities
- Run social media ads
2) Deeply implant the user journey
Not only to promote to existing members, but also to cover the whole process of new users:
- Embed community invitations in the registration process.
- Make the community entrance prominent in the product support process.
- Set up a prominent entrance on the official website and related help documents.
- For non-member groups, ensure that they prioritize reaching the community when searching for relevant topics.
The key point is to accurately grasp the user behavior path and naturally implant the community into its necessary nodes.
3) Continuous value awakening mechanism
Establish a multi-dimensional reach system to regularly strengthen the presence and value of the community:
- Showcase community milestones at important events.
- Share community success stories.
- Host special events that require a community subscription.
The core priority is to continuously monitor community awareness data and develop a ladder improvement plan.
4) Ecosystem integration strategy
Sort out the existing behavioral scenarios of users such as learning, support, and social networking, and draw a complete ecological map.By establishing win-win cooperation with various touchpoints, it ensures that users can easily discover community entrances in different scenarios.
The data shows that more than half of users are unaware of the existence of brand communities. It is recommended to conduct regular user research, establish a awareness tracking system, and optimize the operation strategy accordingly.
2. Does the audience truly understand and agree with the value provided by the community?
When users know that the community exists, the next core question to be solved is “why do they care” –It ultimately depends on the precise positioning of the community’s value proposition. Unfortunately, many organizations’ value statements fall into the “self-centered” misconception.
Clues can be seen from their propaganda rhetoric:Typical expressions such as this community is a platform to connect users, solve problems, and share expertise.
Lack of user engagement often stems from value proposition bias. If this core problem can be solved, other operational problems will be solved. Here are five key questions that must be sorted out:
- What does your target group really need?
- How important is this need to them?
- How often is demand generated?
- What channels are they currently using to meet demand?
- Can the community address these issues more efficiently?
The answers to these questions guide what kind of community you need to create.
In particular, it is important to build for the communityIrreplaceable and unique value。 Here are some examples:
The key is that the value provided must be clear and specific enough to solve the user’s high-frequency needs. Only by building a value system around the core pain points of users can the community be truly attractive.
3. Are users confident that they can efficiently obtain community value?
This is essentially a community experience optimization topic, and as an operator, there are three key touchpoints that need to be polished:
1) Is the registration process smooth enough?
Setting a registration threshold multiplies the difficulty of participation. Can users complete registration with one click while browsing content? With each additional operation step, the willingness to interact will decrease by 20%-30%.
2) Does the interaction design conform to user habits?
Traditional forum-style interaction (only supporting likes/comments) is no longer able to meet the experience expectations of new media generation Z. Comparing the barrage interaction of Bilibili and the like-sharing mechanism of WeChat, we can find the experience fault of traditional communities.
3) Is the social atmosphere attractive?
A deserted community is like an empty shopping mall, and the key is to create an active atmosphere – even if the actual interaction is insufficient,It is also necessary to create a prosperous scene by announcing exciting events and topping high-quality discussions.
4) Do you provide personalized value experiences?
It depends on the user’s historical experience: Is the information quality excellent? Is demand matching accurate? Do you get immediate feedback on your first interaction?
In the case of Airbnb, the secret to its success is:
- Add real photos of users on the recommendation page to create a sense of intimacy as friends exchange gifts
- Recommend the copy to show users“Altruistic”is easier to bring conversions than “self-interested” copywriting, and telling users that “you can get $25 for inviting friends” is not as effective“Give your friend $25 for a trip” is even more touching.
- Innovative launchWish lists, travel stories, and red hearts collectionand other emotional interactive functions, especially real and moving travel narratives, constitute its irreproducible core competitiveness.
4. Is the community the optimal solution for obtaining value in user cognition?
We are in an era of channel fragmentation: third-party platforms, private domain communities, KOL social account comment areas, etc. are all diverting users’ attention.
The core proposition is, does the community have irreplaceable and unique advantages? This requires maintaining a clear awareness – instead of consuming resources on a doomed battlefield, it is better to shift strategic thinking:
The current optimal solution is often not head-on competition, but the construction of ecological alliances.By swapping control with engagement, you can still achieve your business goals:
- Build a value network with ecological partners.
- Support the brand’s peripheral ecology through empowerment.
- Communities are used as connecting hubs for ecosystems rather than in isolation.
It must be soberly aware that relying on short-term activity gimmicks is just scratching the itch through the boot. The essential contradiction is not the level of interaction data, but the trust deficit of users in the value of the community, where they question whether they can efficiently obtain the value they need.
To solve this dilemma, we need to return to the roots:Regain insight into the true value demands of members + reconstruct the community value system based on core demands + establish a closed loop of value trust through continuous verification.
Good luck and world peace!
PS: The above content comes from the official website of FeverBee, translated and organized by Brand Ape.
