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The miracle created by Facebook.com has had a profound impact on the Internet industry. The website has more than 600 million registered members, a market value of more than 50 billion US dollars, etc. It’s amazing! All this took Mark Zuckerberg less than 7 years.
However, while we are amazed, we can't help but ask, why is Facebook.com worth so much? member? For e-commerce websites, it may be easier to understand because members generate transactions and transactions generate operating profits. But Facebook.com is a social networking website (note: it is for community and communication, not transaction! Hehe), not a transaction website. How to reflect the value of members?
Next, how should friends who operate e-commerce use and connect with social networking sites? How to correctly understand "e-commerce community" and "community-based e-commerce"? The following content is broken down for you one by one.
1. Can social networking sites and e-commerce sites be integrated?
The essence of the true integration of the two websites is the integration of website architecture, membership system, and mutual interaction of functions. Otherwise, talking about integration will be meaningless. If you just add a link, isn't that still two websites? At most, they are two independent functions of a website. As far as social networking sites and e-commerce sites are concerned, the functions of these two sites are so different that technically speaking, there is no way to do it. Moreover, from the definition of these two types of websites, the positioning of social networking websites is people and relationships, while the positioning of e-commerce websites is transactions, which is completely different. Therefore, deliberately integrating the two is actually very "naive" and "wishful thinking".
Facebook once had a virtual gift shop where members could pay for virtual goods with virtual currency, but it was offline last year. The official explanation is to "concentrate on core community development work"; but "allow third-party companies to provide similar shopping services." Personally, I think this explanation reflects two points: First, Facebook believes that the positioning of e-commerce and Facebook community are too different. If they continue to develop, they will definitely be two completely independent functions, and it is possible to focus on one at the expense of the other; second, any application, including e-commerce, Business applications are just a by-product of Facebook's core values of "members and relationships."
I think: We should be based on the website's own positioning (e-commerce, transactions, and community expansion), and make full use of and enjoy the value brought by other resources (such as social networking sites). This point is of particular practical significance for the current marketing and operation development of e-commerce websites.
2. Truly understand the growth foundation and core values of social networking sites
The rapid development of social networking sites, in a nutshell, reflects the psychological entanglement of modern people's desire to "be perceived" and "recognized" after solving the problem of food and clothing. It is an extension of human "personality". After understanding so many social networking sites (SNS) and their functions, I personally summarize them into two major categories of (Internet) products: participation and sharing. Participation includes registration (privacy management), publishing blogs, Weibo, photos, videos, etc.; sharing includes subscribing (rss), sharing (Share), following (Follow); participation and sharing at the same time includes: forums, wikis ( Wiki), circles, etc. If the builders of the community plan and design community products based on the spiritual needs of modern people (service objects), and focus on "being perceived" to participate and "being recognized" to share, and are not limited to the functions of Facebook.com, then This community website is very promising. Innovation can be a small feature. The success of Twitter.com and the surpassing of MySpace.com are the best proof!
The success of Facebook.com is that it has quickly built a huge Internet content library by stimulating members' passion for participation and sharing, and has woven a network of relationships with 600 million people around the world through content (members themselves are also important content!).
Through participation and sharing functions, social networking sites increase content and traffic to a level that can directly compete with search engines. The figure below is a simple comparison between social networking sites and search engine type II sites:
Attentive viewers may have noticed that I have specifically listed a membership system in the above table, because social networking sites are sites for people and relationships, and search engines do not have this feature. This difference allows social networking sites to track and analyze member behavior based on long-term member browsing habits and article content, extract keywords that are highly related to members' marketing characteristics, and then match them with advertising content to form ads. Delivery standards. Since search engines can only match keywords submitted by users (not members!) to serve ads, they only have a short-term (IP) tracking effect. Such results are more accidental and of course effective. Relatively weak.
Another point is that since social networking sites allow registered members to participate and share, members’ marketing features can be used even by members without logging in to the site. For example, advertising content can be accurately delivered to their registered contact information. Search engines are even more lacking in this regard, if they do not resort to rogue software!
So, the conclusion is:
1. Theoretically, from the perspective of instant effect, the advertising effect of search engine keyword matching is similar to that of social networking sites;
2. Theoretically, judging from the results of long-term member behavior tracking and analysis, advertising on social networking sites is more reliable and effective than search engine advertising;
3. The diversity of content matching on social networking sites makes the means (advertising products) of advertising on social networking sites more diversified;
4. The characteristics of participation and content sharing on social networking sites, user stickiness, open APIs and other means have made community websites have a continuous flow of advertising resources, which is unparalleled.
The search engines that automatically search through robots are poor, and since the content belongs to your own website, there is no risk of being blocked;
Clearly, the core value of social networking sites is traffic, or further, precise traffic based on analysis of members and member behavior, which can be specific to a specific person. After understanding the characteristics of social networking sites, it will be much easier for us to explain how to use social networking sites.
3. About “e-commerce community”
So is there an “e-commerce community”? In my opinion, the most appropriate understanding of "e-commerce community" is the community's shopping transaction guidance. Compared with search engines, the traffic of social networking sites can be said to be more "accurate" in theory, and the traffic guidance can be more diversified. After fully understanding these, you will feel: Marketing is actually very easy. (What is the difficulty? You must have mentioned it often, but maybe you haven’t realized it yet. It is the easiest thing to be fooled. Hehe, I will tell you later.)
1. Since social networking sites are public engagement sites, you can create your profile on social networking sites like Facebook.com without spending money, that is, register, and then introduce yourself, your company, and your company. For products and services, you can go one step further and open a blog to update the content regularly to attract more people to add you as friends, read your articles through RSS or other methods, and get information about you, your company, your products or services. These members who follow you are accurate traffic and your potential customers. As for how to better attract more people to understand and follow you, and maintain contact with them, I will not go into it here. You can use the Internet to search or participate in community sharing to learn more, or you can ask experts to guide you in this process. Class operations;
2. Similarly, you can also open a Weibo to attract fans without spending money. Fans are accurate traffic, that is, potential customers! Similar to Twitter.com, the main function of this website is to allow members to "Follow" you and automatically accept every Weibo content you publish. One member can follow many other members. Then, when the member logs in to the website, the Weibo content of the followed members will appear in a certain part of the member area, which is clear at a glance and very simple. For Weibo owners, every Follow member is like your fan, that is, a potential customer. As for how to attract more fans, how to edit Weibo in a more friendly way, and how to maintain the "fans" group, I will not go into it here. You can use the Internet to search or participate in community sharing to learn more, or you can ask experts to guide you in this process. Class operations;
It is worth noting that Weibo content is limited to 140 characters. This is mainly because Twitter was originally developed based on the short message format of mobile network terminals: mobile phones. This is the difference from blogging. Therefore, the content of blogs generally needs to be read carefully. It should be said that the content of blogs is relatively orthodox. Weibo emphasizes its speed (input) and immediacy (dissemination). The characteristics of Weibo determine that it is very suitable for "sharing" communication.
3. Forum, wiki, circle or group (formerly also known as SIG, or Group). These functions may not be as popular as current blogs and Weibo, but their influence is not weak at all. These are all Internet products with some history, so I won’t expand on them here.
4. Through the open API of social networking sites, you can also develop new applications, attract members, and promote transactions. Open API sounds mysterious? In fact, to put it simply, the biggest significance here should be the synchronization of member information, or to be precise, the synchronization of member login status. This synchronization state enables the application you develop to quickly obtain n number of website members (you do not need to register to enjoy the application services you develop). These members who enter the application you develop through the core value circle of this website (people and relationships) are accurate traffic, or potential consumers. Similarly, how to make your application interesting enough and integrate it more vividly into your products and services so that other members can accept it is also not discussed here. You can use the Internet to search or participate in community sharing to learn more, or you can ask for advice. Experts will guide you in this type of operation, but this is a technical job;
Special attention should be paid to this: For developers and operators of applications such as the Internet, these potential members are invisible but invisible to you. Some API open terms do not even allow you to mine and receive further information from members. Because members and relationships are the core assets and content of social networking sites. Relative to membership value, all applications, including peripheral applications, are by-products, that's it. For example, no matter how awesome Angry Bird is, it cannot do without Apple’s business ecosystem! The money it earns also has to be split with Apple.
These applications can even be the front-end system of the store, that is, the product display part. Why is it just the front-end product display? Because it is technically understood that if you enter the payment process, members' personal information will be exposed, which should not be the result Facebook.com wants to see. Or are you able to negotiate with Facebook.com to put the payment process on the Facebook.com website?
Allowing access to external third-party applications is the most important feature of an open platform. For open platforms, the decentralization of applications (or functions) actually means that all terminals or applications are connected to the core platform to form a business environment with members as the core. In this case, there is no doubt that members’ loyalty to the platform has been infinitely improved. Of course, the opening of the platform requires an extraordinary membership base, and reserved openness and sharing are definitely the prospects for membership management.
5. Advertise on community websites.
The four methods mentioned above can basically be regarded as passive marketing that directly involves cash and waits for the rabbit. Only by cooperating with the advertising products of social networking sites can it be considered active marketing, that is, proactively discovering customers, placing targeted ads, and guiding traffic. The advertising products provided by social networking sites will definitely tell you a lot of keywords and even pictures (matching picture content must be interesting, but now it seems that there is no such thing, or the effect is very average). Then you can place ads on search engines. Pay cash for every click or ad impression. Theoretically, its effect should be better than the keyword effect of searching the website, but this completely depends on the website's member behavior analysis capabilities, logical algorithms and technology development capabilities, etc. In theory, social networking sites will have more advertising products than search engines, but in essence the difference should not be big.
6. Proactive marketing
So can we proactively discover potential customers ourselves? Of course, it's just like picking up shells on the beach, it's purely manual work. Systematic tracking and analysis of member behavior can only be done by social networking sites themselves. This is because first, this is the core value of the community website. If he gives you this part of the content, it is basically giving you the entire website. Therefore, it is basically a basic condition for the opening of the website that member data cannot be touched; secondly, this involves the personal privacy of members. Social networking sites can conduct detailed analysis and research on members and member behaviors, which is the default or authorized by members when they register on the social networking site. But it is not an authorization for you, Sorry, No way!
That’s basically it, and I’m waiting for everyone’s innovation!
4. About “Community-Based E-Commerce”
So how should we understand community-based e-commerce? As long as you remember the characteristics of social networking sites mentioned earlier in this article, it will be easy to implement community-based e-commerce. These two characteristics are repeated again: "participation" and "sharing". I remember someone mentioned the concept of "conformity". I personally think that "conformity" still remains at the level of people's low-level spiritual needs and fails to capture the key points of the success of social networking sites. Only guiding and inducing others to participate and then share is the essence of gaining popularity on social networking sites.
Characteristics of participation include:
1. Organize activities, give away prizes, and attract others to register and shop;
2. Members introduce members and receive shopping commissions;
Belonging to sharing characteristics:
3. User comments on the product;
4. Feedback from members’ shopping;
5. Add sharing and push buttons to the product page to facilitate users to share content to other communities or their own blogs;
6. Create interactive columns for shopping or product Q&A;
7. Build a member community and interact and share;
The above are very basic, there are many more, use your creativity! Finally, remember to connect all the above points through points and other means. In this way, the content of the membership system will be enriched a lot.
5. Case sharing: Vanke Master
Although it is called "people", I feel that many of them should be operated in a corporate manner. But no matter what, they are all packaged as fashionistas. Great move!
In fact, there is no need to explain more. To put it simply, it is to guide others to participate, buy goods first, become an "expert", and then recommend goods by sharing shopping experience. If you successfully recommend and sell goods, you can get commissions.
The strange thing is that the websites of experts are all "nested" in Fanke's website. Why not let the product display pages of these experts be mapped to other personal spaces or domain addresses? Wouldn't that kind of publicity effect be greater? Hehe. Purely personal opinion.
The above is a long-winded talk about a lot of "fishing" and "fishing". I hope everyone can truly understand and understand the technical foundation, product features and operation and promotion skills of social networking sites, and effectively use social networking sites to provide your website with Drain traffic and add value. I wish you all success in your exploration of integrating social networking sites and e-commerce sites.
Source of article: Paidai.com