A journey of a thousand miles begins with seed users

From this lesson, we will move into the study of user operation. The next two classes are about the operation of seed users and key people.

First, the role and maintenance of seed users

Let's start today with torrents. A seed user is a user who can sprout. They are heavy users of products, willing to give feedback and share, and pursue spiritual achievement above others.

What's the difference between a torrent user and a key person? The same thing is that they can influence and infect people around us and speak for us; The big difference is that the key person may not actually pay for our product, but we need her energy to bring it to our real users. And the seed user himself must be the heavy user of the product.

The ideal torrent user is fault-tolerant. They are willing to voice opinions and make suggestions, even run the product with you, have influence in a small circle, or even be an opinion leader in a particular circle. Through them, we can achieve the threefold purpose of verifying demand, spreading word of mouth and establishing community values.

I have been a seed user of several products and experienced the service of product teams in the community. I feel that I have found the same kind of people, and feel the original intention and significance of the founding team to do this. I have become her small speaker without expecting anything in return. I recommend people whenever I see them, and I am not hesitate to help them forward many times in my moments.

The seed user accumulation period seems to be slow, and we probably put more thought and effort into the first 100 users than the next 1000 users. But in fact, it is in a good foundation, the aura is right, behind the pull of new people attached to the odds will be greater, not easy to lose. And it allows us to test on a small scale whether the product is OK and whether it needs to be remanufactured.

Some people say, I have invested a year of time and millions of funds in the product behind closed doors, you want me to start slowly, I can't wait. Can we spend the money and just buy the first users?

Not in my experience with multiple companies. Do you still remember the zombie fan event that a media company practiced for Party A on Weibo some time ago? Party A spent nearly 100,000 yuan on this media company to invite Internet celebrities to shoot short videos for promotion. It seems that there are many likes and comments, but the traffic to Taobao shop is almost zero.

You can see the fast channel, the traffic is either occupied by the giant, or the water is too big. The first batch of users or honestly one by one to pick it up. Many large factories in the initial stage is also like this, but most people do not see that long root process, only to see their ground out of the grand.

For example, now the hornet's nest is very large, but it was slow in the early days and accumulated for a long time. They invite people who are traveling to write their travels on the hornet's nest from Weibo one by one. The seed users who love to share, help others and answer questions make the community beautiful and warm.

Just imagine, if we introduce a lot of hands out party at the beginning, only ask for the people who do not contribute to the content, users will not feel a good atmosphere, the faster the new attract the faster the loss. Just like you can never fill a leaky bucket.

Since torrent users are so important, how do we maintain them? Simply put, it means being sincere, being nice to them beyond expectations, and making them feel respected. Even play jiao sell meng to establish a personal relationship, customer service number also need to have personality traits, likable. Holiday gifts, greetings, free new experience can also close the distance.

2. How to acquire seed users

How do torrent users get it? There are many methods, and I've listed the mainstream effective ones. In fact, the same channel of different people to do the effect will be very different. Be sure to test carefully.

First, social media, communities and forums have been cultivated for a long time and targeted poaching

Social media has some characteristics, such as interest tags, user related recommendation, number of fans or reading public, private message, etc., which is especially suitable for inviting your seed users. Weibo, Zhihu and Douban are common places that can be planted, with a large number of users, high activity, durability, and good results.

"Chinese entrepreneurs all owe Douban a debt of gratitude," said a "We media" person. "Which of you didn't go to Douban to scrape traffic when you started?" But because of the openness of these platforms, you can see the torrent users, competing products can also see, everyone is competing.

In this case, the way of invitation, the language is particularly important. One is to put yourself in the other's shoes and think of yourself as the invited person to feel whether you will be moved. The other is to randomly send two groups of invitees two words to test which one has a higher response rate.

Second, invite from the founding team's social circle

That's the first channel, and Facebook is a great example of that, where it started on the Harvard campus and grew and grew.

This one is the most important is to use your circle of friends, contacts, groups, company employees, etc., let them first try, and share for you to forward. At the beginning of Sina Weibo, every employee was required to invite their friends to register and post updates every day. Therefore, the friends of Sina employees were also high-quality users.

When pushing the social software "Laiwang" APP, Ali also requires each employee to invite 100 friends to download and register before getting the year-end bonus. Naturally, the friends of Ali employees are also sellers and people in the Internet circle, and the quality is also good.

Third, poach from competing products

I think the cold launch of the Hazelnut homestay of Meituan holding the thigh of Airbnb is very effective. In 2017, Meituan announced the launch of its home-stay booking APP "Hazelnut home-stay". Hazelnut's city manager began an aggressive round of BD listings, targeting, naturally, hosts who were already running Airbnbs.

In order to leverage these people, they frantically add people in various B&B groups, after finding what moved the people host? They actually launched a feature that lets Airbnb hosts move their listings and synchronize their listings with one click. Reduced the operating cost of the civilian host, but also gave cash rewards, at one stroke to pry away many civilian hosts.

Fourth, dry goods resources lure

Dry goods can be e-books, videos, documents, etc. that your target audience might enjoy, or online micro-classes. Micro-class is the most popular way to increase popularity in the past two years.

If the founding team has a big name, we can have someone from within the team speak, if not, we can pay a big name in the industry to speak, and the topic is what our potential customers will care about. Before, I asked Peng Xiaoliu, "the first brother of Jianshu", to talk about a topic "How ordinary people double their finances in their spare time", which attracted seed users for a skill trading platform. A micro-class attracted nearly 1,000 users, and selected many seed users.

Remember, micro class itself is interesting and valuable, must not be rushed, too much advertising is too hard.

Fifth, Q&A marketing, such as Zhihu, Baidu know, Wukong Q&A and other platforms to answer popular questions that you can hold, tourism businesses can also go to Mafengwo community Q&A to do.

With dry goods resources to lure the same, the first to give others value, help others solve the problem, and then soft hit an advertisement, net friends see you so walk heart almost will not be disgusted.

Sixth, accurate offline promotion

One person you've met face-to-face offline is worth 10 people you've never met online. In its early days, Qiantou.com held offline activities in various cities, attracting many like-minded fans with its values of "world addiction" and "responsible travel".

The employer APP I used to work for is an e-commerce business of artisans' handicrafts. It visited various tea fairs in the early days and gained a large number of seed users. According to the data, the next day retention rate of users obtained at offline exhibitions is even higher than online channels.

Seventh, crowdfunding platform

Finally, if you have a great founder story and entrepreneurial idea, crowdfunding platform is also a good channel to get seed users, such as Taobao crowdfunding, Modian crowdfunding, start crowdfunding, etc., by telling your story, your product idea, financial model, attract like-minded people to support. These people not only provided the start-up capital, they were also the best propagandists.

There are many more ways to find a torrent user. The above list is a list of the methods I've tested that work for most products. If you have any other ideas, please feel free to contact me.

Three, summary promotion

That's all for today. I've explained the role of torrent users and how to get them:

In the role of torrent users, I mentioned that torrent users are heavy users of the product. They are keen to provide advice and promote the product. It is very important to maintain them well.

Here are my seven tips on how to acquire torrents, all of them tried and true and almost free.

Well, that's it for today. I hope it was helpful. If you find the course useful, please share it with us. See you next time!