A few days ago, I read a blog post by my friend Mou Changqing, "Talk about how newcomers learn to do online promotion." I felt that it was very well written and very useful for newcomers. Reading this blog post also made me fall into memories: I started learning about personal homepage around 2002, and now I have actually entered this industry. The past events are vivid in my mind. Thinking about the ideals we had back then, they have all been raped by reality. Sometimes when facing reality, we have to lower our noble heads. It was really harder to build a website at that time than it is now: there was no one to communicate with, no ready-made experience to draw on, and it was completely a matter of feeling your way across the river. Unlike now, there are a lot of articles sharing various experiences.
I digressed again, bring it back. Friends often ask me "how to learn online promotion". Let’s also learn from Brother Mou, summarize my experience, and talk about my views on learning online promotion:
1. Go to the website and read articles
When you first enter this industry, you must feel very novel and excited. You feel that this industry is mysterious and full of charm, and you can't wait to start one or two big projects right away. But Jiang Likun hereby advises you to put all these questions and thoughts aside, calm down, and have a general understanding of online promotion before you start tossing:
First, add professional websites in the field of promotion to your favorites, and go there to learn more when you have nothing to do. Especially for some experts and celebrities in the industry, you should know their names and blogs by heart. What they write is very valuable.
Then add industry websites related to related products to your favorites to keep abreast of industry trends. The means of promotion are fixed, but the specific content of promotion is formulated based on specific industry conditions and user needs. Therefore, you must always understand the industry trends of related products and grasp user needs in a timely manner.
2. Join the industry QQ group
After a few days of study, I believe you already have a general understanding of online promotion, as well as some preliminary thoughts and confusions, and are eager to find someone to help you solve your doubts. At this time, you can appropriately join some professional groups to exchange experiences with peers and seniors. When joining a group, pay attention to the following points:
1. It’s not about the crowd but the essence. Don’t join too many groups in the early stage, it depends on your own energy. First, add a promotion experience exchange group, because this stage is a learning period, and learning should be the main focus.
2. Change the group name card before joining the group. Personally, I recommend using the real name + company name for group business cards: firstly, you can promote yourself, and secondly, you can promote the company. Be sure to make sure your name is among the top ten in the group member list, so as to deepen others' impression of you.
3. Take the initiative to speak and communicate more. When you are new to the industry, no one knows you, and we join the group mainly to ask for advice and learn; so lower your profile and take the initiative to communicate with others. Develop these people into your first network resources.
4. Actively apply for administrators. Many people are too lazy to apply for group management, thinking that managing the group is troublesome, but this is not the case. The benefits of a group administrator are obvious. All group members will remember him and be deeply impressed. In the group, the administrator is authoritative. Therefore, for newcomers, becoming a group manager is the best shortcut to increase their popularity and expand their online connections.
When you reach a certain stage of learning, start joining more groups. At the same time, try to add some QQ groups related to the promotion target group. For example, if you want to promote women's products, you can add some female groups. When the group reaches a certain number, start trying to advertise on QQ groups. The methods and precautions are as follows:
Method 1: Post ads directly in the group. The most traditional method. The key point is not to post ads immediately after joining the group because you can’t wait. Otherwise, not only will your ads not be clicked, but they will also be deleted. The correct way is to join the group, spend a few days chatting with everyone, exchange feelings, especially get to know the group owner and administrator, and then start posting ads. Only at this time will people see the advertisements posted, and they will not be T-rated. When posting advertisements, don’t post them too frequently. Only one post a day is enough, otherwise it will arouse everyone’s disgust. The more user-friendly the content, the better.
Method 2: Use group emails to send advertisements. I always think that this is the best way to promote QQ. Not much to say about specific email content techniques. Let me just talk about an idiotic but crucial issue: If you want to use group email for advertising, you must join more groups with open group email functions. Because this feature is controlled by group owners and group administrators, many groups are closed.
There is a lot more content about group promotion. If you want to know more, please refer to Jiang Likun’s previous article "Online Promotion: The Ultimate Tutorial on QQ Group Promotion"
3. Join the forum/SNS
After all, the scope of group influence is limited, and the high-level group only has 500 people. Therefore, if you want to communicate with more people and achieve better promotion results, you need to find a larger platform, and the best candidate for this platform is the forum, followed by the most popular SNS at the moment. First choose two forums and one SNS.
The first forum should be related to promotion, such as the Tianyi Forum, which gathers many talents and experts in promotion and is the best platform to learn promotion. The second forum is chosen to be related to the target user group. For example, if you are promoting computer-related products, you can go to the Enthusiast Forum, which is one of the most professional computer knowledge popularization forums in the country with nearly one million members. The third SNS should be related to promotion. There are many such SNS, such as 5G, Guo Jijun’s Love Gathering, TW Classmates, etc. Of course, if you have enough energy and time, you can also find more forums and SNS.
After registering for these forums and SNS, go there to communicate with people, improve your level, and increase your visibility on the website. The purpose of communicating more with people is to gain knowledge and experience. When you reach a higher level in industry forums, you will find that you have grown from an old bird to an old bird without knowing it. The purpose of increasing your visibility is to accumulate contacts and increase your influence. When you are well-known in a forum, you will find that even if you post an advertisement, there will be a lot of people to support you. In fact, this is the simplest forum marketing:)
4. Establish QQ group
After the first three steps, you have basically left the ranks and have some experience and connections. Now you can try to integrate these resources. Building a group is one of the best ways to integrate people, so hurry up and create a group of your own. In addition, groups have two biggest benefits:
1. You can use your own group as you like and post ads as you want.
2. The group leader is the most authoritative. When you talk about cooperation with the activists in the group, you will find that it is easy to achieve success because of the authority of the group leader. In fact, authority is one of the important means of influencing others. Jiang Likun will write a special article on this issue in the future.
Tips: This article is the original work of Jiang Likun, the founder of Tuiyiyi and a member of Blue Beacon. If you want to see more articles, please search Tuiyiyi or Jiang Likun, or log in to Jiang Likun (pinyin) to click on the card. Please retain this copyright information when reprinting.
5. Participate in offline gatherings
Many friends think that newcomers to the industry should attend more offline gatherings, but this is not the case. Friends who often attend parties know that offline parties, especially large-scale events, basically just change business cards, with no actual effect. If you attend too many parties, you can only become familiar with them, but the effect is not good. So my suggestion is: get familiar online first, and then attend offline gatherings after you have a certain knowledge and understanding. At this time, when attending gatherings, there will be no sense of strangers to each other, and the relationship will be further enhanced. At the same time, they will also introduce you to more friends during the party. The most valuable is the business card that is exchanged after being introduced by a friend. The most important thing is that meeting a group of people at one time will definitely save a lot of cost than visiting them one by one.
6. Establish a blog website
With the accumulation of the first five steps, I believe you have rich experience and should have operated several projects. At this time, you should comprehensively apply and integrate your previous knowledge. The best way is to practice. Starting a blog is the first choice. If conditions permit, you can also build a personal website. The purpose of this is to comprehensively understand the process of website construction and improve one's overall quality. If done properly, maybe a famous website will be born.
For the specific planning process, you can go to Jiang Likun’s blog to read previous articles. I only emphasize two points here, and these two points must be completed:
1. Increase the PR value. If you want to increase your PR value, you need to exchange a lot of high-quality links. This process will greatly improve your negotiation skills and at the same time give you a deep understanding of the construction of external links. External links are one of the most important components of SEO.
2. Optimize at least one keyword. Choose at least one keyword with low competition and optimize it (such as your name). When others search for this keyword in a search engine and your site ranks first, it means that you have already mastered keyword optimization more comprehensively. For keyword optimization skills, please refer to the author's previous article "Jiang Likun: How to Improve Keyword Ranking in Search".
If you have carried out the above two days well, then you are already half an SEO expert.
7. Study the website model
The previous methods have given you a certain understanding of online promotion, SEO, website construction, and marketing, and you have also accumulated a lot of contacts and experience. Now you are definitely considered an old bird. But although we have made some small achievements, we must not be complacent and stand still. We must move towards higher goals, broaden our horizons, and transform ourselves from veterans into experts. At this stage, we begin to learn from the advanced experiences of other websites and study the characteristics and models of various websites. The final effect must reach the level of comprehensively diagnosing and planning websites.
Of course, this is a long process, and it is also related to personal environment and own characteristics. It can only be accumulated slowly through time and experience. My advice to you here is: read more articles and practice more; communicate more and summarize more; visit more websites and share more.
8. Start writing original articles
When you have a lot of experience, you can try to write down these experiences. First, it can enhance your personal reputation. It would be ideal if you could establish yourself as a famous blogger or an expert in the industry. Secondly, you can increase your experience in writing soft articles, which is also one of the key means of promotion. Regarding soft articles, the author has written many articles. If you are interested, you can check it out on Jiang Likun’s blog.
9. Organize offline gatherings
When you already have a lot of connections and experience, you can try organizing offline gatherings. Start organizing from small gatherings, starting with FB gatherings. Little by little, it extended to industry gatherings and industry salons with hundreds of people. This move can greatly expand your network, consolidate your network, and enhance your reputation. At the same time, it will also greatly improve your organizational and coordination skills.
10. The easiest way: attend training
So much has been said above, but I believe not many can actually implement it. So here is another quickest way, which is to participate in training. But to be honest, there seem to be very few professional marketing and promotion trainings at the moment. Two training camps are recommended here: one is a free training camp, and all trainings are completely free. The other one is "Imake Internet Marketing College (www.imakecollege.com)" recommended by Brother Changqing. I checked it out and found it to be very powerful. The introduction said it is supported by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. So far, this seems to be the only professional and systematic marketing and promotion training institution in China. (Actually, I have always wanted to make up for this, but let others beat me to it). In fact, I personally feel that the most commendable thing about them is that they have systematized and standardized marketing and promotion training, and they have also compiled teaching materials. I took a look at their simple courses and general training content. It is indeed very systematic and comprehensive. The tuition is not expensive, and judging from the employment situation of their graduates, the results should be pretty good. If that comrade has already studied, you are welcome to share your experience.
I’ve finished telling you the methods. The above methods are not necessarily the best, but they are definitely based on Jiang Likun’s personal experience and have been personally practiced by me. Of course, when it comes to specific operations, you don’t necessarily have to follow rigid methods. The most important thing is to find a path that suits you. My point of view has always been: the most suitable is the best.
In addition, in the process of learning, you should learn more about other people's ideas and less about other people's methods. A person doing a hundred projects may have different methods, but his mode of thinking is almost certain. So as long as you learn his ideas, it is equivalent to learning all his methods. And if you learn his methods one by one, you may not be able to finish them in a lifetime.
Author information: Jiang Likun, founder of Tuiyi (www.tui18.com) and member of Blue Beacon. If you want to see more articles by the author, please search Tui Yiyi or Jiang Likun, or log in to Jiang Likun (pinyin) and click on the card. New operation/promotion communication group 13 23623940, welcome to join.
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