The second intimate relationship is the private domain firewall
Private domain traffic has increasingly become a must for merchants and brands. So, what role can the existence of KOE (Key Opinion Employee) play in building a brand’s private domain?
To answer this question, we must first clarify the definition of private domain traffic. Generally speaking, private domain traffic is considered to be the part of the brand’s repeatable, low-cost or even free traffic that reaches users. available traffic.
However, if it only stays on the active contribution of fans or the free acquisition of brands, it is far from being called a private domain. Today, when the traffic economy has become the mainstream, the brand’s desire for traffic is not just to reach, but to take more substantive actions, including but not limited to purchasing products.
Therefore, many brands now have some wishful thinking in their understanding of private domain traffic. They mistakenly believe that as long as they follow themselves, or join fans of WeChat groups and Douyin groups, they can be called private domain traffic. In fact, it’s not that people who follow you are your private domain, and it’s not that people you can reach for free are your private domain. A private domain is essentially a relationship. To achieve true privatization of fans and privatization of traffic, brands still need to work harder.
What kind of fans are real private domain traffic?
The highest state of private domain traffic should be to make supporting brands a way of life for fans. Browsing, liking, reposting, commenting, barrage, coin insertion, and purchasing are all subconscious actions.
Of course, it is difficult to fully achieve this highest state, but brands should work towards this direction. From the operational practice of KOL (Key Opinion Leader, Key Opinion Leader), any follower who has the following three good intentions can be called private domain traffic (the experience of KOL can be generalized to KOE).
1. Kind reminders
When KOLs make mistakes intentionally or unintentionally, fans will remind them thoughtfully. For example, some KOL operators accidentally changed the like list of the account from private to public, and fans think that this will damage the KOL’s personal image, so they will remind them in the comments or through private messages. If it is a black fan, or a general fan, they will often attack. Fans’ sincere care for KOL is the first criterion for measuring whether the private domain traffic is qualified.
Another situation is that when a fan finds some attack information or competitive information that he thinks may be detrimental to KOL, he will give a reminder as soon as possible. For example, in the fan group of Tsinghua’s mother Ma Lanhua, some die-hard fans once reported to KOL that there was an imitator on Douyin, and declared that they would never pay attention to the new Tsinghua mother, nor would they watch her live broadcast, and even more Will not buy the books she recommends, and even called on other fans to boycott this imitator. In fact, this new mother from Tsinghua University is a new talent signed by the same company. Because Tsinghua’s mother Ma Lanhua is more inclined to liberal arts, and the newly signed Tsinghua mother is stronger in science and engineering. Originally, the two accounts could echo each other, but true private domain fans don’t care about this, and they will not “change their minds” if they identify a KOL. This scene was like flooding the Dragon King Temple.
2. Good faith maintenance
Fans who support private domain traffic will take the initiative to stand up to protect the KOL’s image when the KOL is questioned or attacked. Therefore, KOLs with real private domain traffic do not need to quarrel by themselves. For example, the account “Sui Bian Do” is a cooking account opened by Sui Bian, a famous Chinese chef and super chef, because his Tandian account “Special Chef Sui Bian” has become popular on platforms such as Douyin and Bilibili before, so This account has more than 60,000 fans before publishing the work, and these 60,000 fans can be regarded as private domain traffic. At present, this account has only released 6 works, and already has 268,000 fans. Because it is a cooking video, in one of the short videos of “Steamed Lion’s Head”, there is a scene where Sui Bian scoops up the soup in the pot with a frying spoon and tastes the saltiness with his mouth. In the comments, someone raised a question—asking for advice: Do Chinese chefs taste it directly with a large spoon? Are there hygiene concerns? Immediately, a fan countered and said: Do you always use serving chopsticks when you eat? Another fan defended: Most Western food should be tasted, and if you don’t taste it, you are not a good cook. In fact, I taste very little Chinese food, and I wash the spoon after tasting.
Regardless of whether this point of view is reasonable or not, what we have seen is: the hardcore fans who can stand up for you at critical moments are your real private domain traffic.
For another example, the account “Special Chef Sui Bian” received some advertisements because of its good traffic. Some fans have opinions, thinking that there are too many advertisements, which affects the experience of watching videos. Immediately, fans stood up and defended, saying: Will you pay if you don’t accept the advertisement? You have to pay to visit the store to eat, and you have to pay for editing and editing. If you don’t accept advertisements, you will have no chance to see these videos.
3. Well-intentioned suggestions
Some highly educated fans will give KOL various reasonable suggestions. It is easy to be attacked when speaking online. Fans’ well-intentioned suggestions are often regarded by another group of fans as giving lessons to KOLs and showing off. But the real die-hard fans are infatuated, and will not give up the opportunity to improve their favorite bloggers because they may be questioned by others. For example, fans of the “special chef Sui Bian” account will actively provide information on various restaurants for bloggers’ reference. Some fans will send the latest developments of other bloggers on the same track, so that “Special Chef Sui Bian” can quickly collect traffic.
Combining the above three major goodwill, we can see that the relationship between KOL and fans who can be called private domain traffic is essentially a sub-intimate relationship. The intimate relationship is the relationship in real life, while the relationship between KOL and fans takes place in the virtual space, so it is called secondary intimate relationship. Secondary intimacy is a relationship based on high-intensity emotional interactions that provide mutual emotional value. The realization of commercial value is inseparable from the premise of emotional value. Fans need to have an in-depth understanding of KOL’s life details based on personality (even better than KOL itself understands those personality-based behaviors and experiences), so that it is possible to build an intimate relationship between the two. Only when a secondary intimate relationship is established, is the truly effective private domain traffic.
Private domain needs to be personified
After figuring out these reasons, let’s go back to the relationship between KOE and the brand’s private domain construction. Before the brand is personified, it is difficult to establish an intimate relationship with fans just relying on its own name and VI system. And KOE is a living person, who can trigger the spark of communication between people with the people (fans) behind the traffic, and form an intimate relationship in the continuous information communication and collision, and make the interaction with each other an unconscious Dominated lifestyle.
Hongxing Erke is popular all over the Internet because it donated 50 million yuan during the “July 20” torrential rain in Zhengzhou in 2021, but its own operating conditions are very bad and serious losses have occurred. This act of conscience touched the netizens, and the netizens spontaneously appealed and put it into action, buying Hongxing Erke’s live broadcast room. But at this time, these netizens cannot be called Hongxing Erke’s private domain traffic. Because the brand lacks a personality to interact with fans, carry the emotional value output of fans, and convert it into commercial value in continuous interaction. It wasn’t until Hongxing Erke’s young boss appeared, and the emotional interaction had an equivalent personified subject, that he locked in his own private domain traffic.
Therefore, Wu Rongzhao, the boss of Hongxing Erke, can be said to be the brand’s first KOE. At the end of last year, an account called “Crazy Subordinate” appeared on Douyin. It only posted 30 short videos and gained 1.26 million fans. The first video had 1.47 million likes and 1.47 million views. It should be at the billion level. Take a look at its profile, which says “After 00, Hongxing Erke also needs to be rectified.” It turned out that this was borrowed from the hot topic of “rectifying the workplace after 00”, which was used by employees of Hongxing Erke to complain about the company.
The subject of this account is actually Erke’s KOE. The work details he photographed gave netizens an opportunity to learn more about Erke, which provided support for further building an intimate relationship. The content seems to be a complaint, but it will not damage the image of Hongxing Erke, but will increase the chance of emotional interaction between the brand and fans.
The content of this account is mediocre, but the rapid increase in followers and the high playback volume are actually caused by the migration of Hongxing Erke’s already formed private domain traffic. Brands such as Hongxing Erke, which have obtained phenomenal traffic, actually need many different types of KOEs to undertake their phenomenal traffic and convert it into their own private domain traffic. If we don’t build a KOE matrix, these huge traffic collected by fragmentation will eventually be fragmented and become the private domain traffic of other brands.
Don’t be fooled by fake private domains
Finally, two points need to be noted.
First, impulsive fans are not private domain traffic. Passion comes and goes quickly. Impulsive fans are often brainless, they flock to support you on a whim, and if the wind changes, it is also this group of impulsive fans who turn around and attack you crazily. There is no so-called sub-intimate relationship between such fans and the brand and KOE.
Second, profit-seeking fans are not private domain traffic. Profit-seeking fans are the “wool party”. They buy when they see a bargain, and leave when there is no bargain. They become fans of whichever brand has benefits. This is purely a speculative behavior, and the relationship with the brand and KOE is essentially indifferent, and there is no such thing as an intimate relationship at all.
