EGG Japan, a company known for helping several Silicon Valley companies to open up the Japanese market, recently held a forum on how to increase the number of users and fans. By the inventor from Pinterest, Cookpad, Moi (twitcast), LinkedIn Japan (lead UK), Zendesk (provides the website that manages terminal customer service), Evernote (impression notes), TED (Global Conference) Xtokyo , Uber Japan, and Airbnb Japan's public relations manager are involved in how to build and maintain user (fan) group discussions in the Japanese mainland.
Let's take a look at the following list of five best topics for audience feedback
1. Create value for your "companion"
The pursuit of a product or service is sufficient to produce a clustering effect, but it is not enough to sustain the fan population. To obtain peer recognition and worship can spontaneously produce industry leaders and trends. The pursuit of peer identity can create a virtuous circle, the general user due to the community in the recognition and become famous, thus becoming famous, bringing more fans gathered. Like YouTube users, Ashton Kutcher (Hollywood man, the first Twitter user to get 1 million followers).
Yuka Oishi noticed that her users liked the "forward" feature very much. Getting more forwarding means getting more people's approval, which Pinterest let this phenomenon dig deeper, whenever you click on the forwarding picture will automatically link to the originator's homepage, so this increases the original person to increase the likelihood of fan.
In Cookpad,ako Nakayama said they used the weekly cooking recipes contest to increase user involvement in the site's activities. It's not easy to come up with 52 themes. Holidays are often an opportunity for people to think out good ideas, but users prefer to see a common theme like "Five minutes of good food".
Fan 2
2. The way of communication in Rome
You may find it appropriate to chat with the most senior users and the super fans with the typical Silicon Valley style of communication with ease and ridicule. However, Nakayama that this is not a proper approach. Cookpad The company that we should communicate with local fans as they do in Rome. The company has expanded from Japan to overseas in the form of mergers and acquisitions, but its ways of communicating remain unique to the local team.
Oishi agrees: "Our headquarters is in the United States, and this is just an overseas branch." She began to explain why she had to change the way she communicated. Her colleagues working in Silicon Valley can easily use the "Hey!" Such words are the head of the mail, but such a way is difficult to accept in Japan, which attaches great importance to etiquette. So she began to try some neutral routes. For example, in the introduction of their own time to call themselves "Yuka" (similar to Xiao Liu) rather than "Oishi" (nickname), in order to cater to the local customs of Japan.
3. Employees are the representatives of enterprise and user communication
Rei Hasegawa, from LinkedIn, and Shoko Yanagisawa, from Zendesk, who believe the company wants to open up the Japanese market, must pay attention to the Japanese local staff group itself. "You need to make your employees think they represent the company," Hasegawa.
Each employee, especially the initial staff of the branch office, will be the representative of the company in the local image. Potential competitors, alliances, and users look at the company through their employees, so headquarters needs to be as close as possible to these employees.
Yanagisawa found that candid conversation is the most powerful way to keep close contact. "Both external and internal communication, we have to feel transparent and open," she said. LinkedIn has a similar blunt approach. This helps to enhance the opportunity for team members to communicate and learn from each other. Hasegawa stressed: "The mutual contact, win together." ”
Fan economy
4. Sustained growth stems from a careful screening of initial users (experienced users)
A veteran user of a company's products is the source of life that the company can operate. Their spiritual and financial support has put the company through a crisis of ups and downs. That's why finding the right people and keeping close contact with them is important to the growing use of the site.
Airbnb is just getting started in Japan, but they are very confident about their future. In Japan, Airbnb visitors show a great interest in return visits. This is thanks to Airbnb's efforts in the Japanese branch, "Yoshiaki Tatewaki explained.
Mika Ueno, from Evernote, has a similar experience in expanding the use of people. As a community group at Ted Tokyo, she doubled her mind. It also makes Ted Tokyo the most successful congress organization in the world. Ueno that this stems from her team's emphasis on selecting attendees from the first meeting organization. "Most of the people we choose are also ready to make their point," he said. "she said.
5. Explore the deep value of your product
Expanding the use of groups from senior players is an important challenge. Organic growth lurks a huge crisis, but how do you expand it in a multidimensional way? You must know that the value of the product is different from person to person.
Keiko Kitao, from Uber, points out why Uber is involved in the conceptual movement of babies and homemade ice cream. These provide a breakthrough for all of its products and services. In Japan, a new concept activity is to designate a Uber (user of the site) to take you around Tokyo's most famous Christmas lights.
Tatewaki from Airbnb also has a similar approach. "I want to create a way for the elderly in Japan to entertain tourists," he said. He cites an old grandmother who lives in Tokyo, and after her children have gradually left her, a solitary and lonely room. Japan has very many scenic villages, but also carries a huge population aging problem. He sees a potential opportunity for Airbnb to restructure the depressed regions by developing family hotels and holiday tours.