Internet Business Thinking

Chapter 41 Business Crisis in the Internet Era: What They Do at Critical Moments (4)
Therefore, Sina Weibo's social media platform strategy must be based on media attributes, relying on the high-quality content and huge traffic brought by strong media advantages, purposefully open and cooperate, and refine the traffic distribution through the analysis of user data. In this way, information transmission can be completed more accurately and efficiently, and commercialization can be realized.

There are many participants in social media platforms, including users, advertisers, diversion websites, search engines, e-commerce, and local life services.The information flow dissemination process can be roughly divided into three parts: information generation, aggregation, and distribution.For information generation, users can post content to Weibo by creating or reposting comments, or share the content of the website to the Weibo platform with one click through the built-in "Like" button on a third-party website, which can make up for the content. The shortcomings of being streamlined but not detailed enough can further analyze user preferences and behaviors to provide a data basis for accurate information flow distribution.

Sina's social media platform strategy should be more cautious in the dissemination of advertising information, because the motivation of advertisers is not pure, and they are often not welcomed by users. The forced placement of information flow advertisements not only fails to make full use of social media interaction On the contrary, the advantage of connecting with the Internet greatly reduces the user experience and increases the cost of user information acquisition.Sina Weibo aggregates a large amount of content and data every day, but how to classify and organize, how to improve the efficiency and accuracy of users' access to information, so as to enhance user stickiness, this is what Sina Weibo needs to improve.From this perspective, it is imperative to improve the quality of Weibo search.It can cooperate with professional search engine companies such as Baidu to improve search quality and accuracy, and traditional web search will also take the opportunity to make up for the lack of popularity.

In addition, social media is bringing huge traffic to e-commerce and retail websites. According to Hitwise statistics, in October 2012, Sina Weibo contributed 10% of the traffic to Taobao and other e-commerce. The model of "social media + e-commerce" , is a reliable way to monetize traffic.For e-commerce, cooperation with Weibo not only introduces abundant traffic into e-commerce, but also brings a weak relationship network to e-commerce, which makes up for the lack of user relationship network of traditional e-commerce companies.For Weibo, the complete payment and logistics system of e-commerce just complements the closed loop of Sina Weibo’s O8.6O marketing, which can form a complete social media consumption path SICAS, that is, "perception-interest and interaction- Linking and Communication—Purchasing Action—Information Sharing”.

What needs to be emphasized is that the basis for implementing a platform strategy is a clear interest mechanism and operating rules, such as the Apple App store, where the profit sharing between Apple and third-party developers is very clear, and there is no direct interest dispute. This is a platform strategy that can prerequisite for successful implementation.In the social media platform based on the ecosystem, what Sina Weibo, as the core, needs to do is to maintain the stability and balance of the entire system in the background, instead of deliberately contacting users directly by constantly creating topics.

Commercialization Path

Xiaomi Technology has just been established for three years. In 3, it sold 2012 million mobile phones and achieved sales of 719 billion yuan.The success of Xiaomi is also the success of social marketing. Its brand promotion, word-of-mouth marketing, customer service, etc. all rely on Sina Weibo.The success of Xiaomi proves that Sina Weibo can complete the closed loop of social marketing, convert social media traffic into e-commerce traffic, and realize commercial value.The successful cooperation between e-commerce and social media further proves that the commercialization of Sina should be based on the consideration of the business ecosystem.

Including Tencent and Alibaba, they are all building a platform-based ecosystem, which is exactly the way out for Sina Weibo, but the premise is that through cooperation or self-build, the infrastructure and platforms are well established, such as Weibo search, Weibo data, etc. Mining and Weibo payment, etc.After the completion of this ecosystem platform, a large number of commercial symbiotic relationships will be formed. Sina Weibo has the core content data and user relationship map, and the commercialization problem may be solved easily.Based on the three advantages of large traffic, big data and user relationship graph, Sina Weibo may adopt the following three business paths:
One is based on traffic.Consider traffic conversion and sales.Sina Weibo has a strong media advantage, minimizes human interference to this ecological environment, and regulates and controls false information that damages this environment, making Sina Weibo the largest provider of user-generated content in China.Then, through sharing, we can cooperate with e-commerce and local life service providers to convert traffic into e-commerce traffic and realize traffic monetization.

The second is big data analysis and user relationship map.A more precise advertising model and precise marketing of corporate Weibo can be considered.A large amount of user-generated content data reflects their interests and preferences. Through big data analysis, it can help companies find target user groups more accurately, recommend brand content to users who may be interested, and realize word-of-mouth marketing in combination with user relationship maps. Realize the precise placement of content marketing and advertising.

Third, improve the search function of Weibo and combine keyword search results with social relations, which may completely subvert the existing search and profit model and achieve more accurate advertising.

Message from the editor
From the perspective of Internet business thinking, let’s also talk about the hottest, most straightforward, and most uncertain Internet finance at present.
Finance is a monster that is intertwined with the fate of human history. It has created batch after batch of "rich and powerful" heroes, and has been criticized for "doing nothing to produce" but being "both rich and expensive".Although China is not the birthplace of the modern financial system, it also has its own unique financial history. Not to mention, just like the Qing Dynasty's banks, ticket offices, etc., the business of financial tycoons such as Shanxi merchants has been opened to the north and south of the river.It can be seen that finance is not a darling born only in modern Western countries. In the East, it also has a long and glorious tradition.

The growth of finance itself is hopeless and inevitable.Under the background of traditional "Physiocratism", although merchants, including financiers, had a lot of money, they were discriminated against in terms of social status and imperial examinations. Therefore, finance was not an easy job in ancient China.Especially considering that China is a society where politics is paramount. Engaging in finance is a high-return but high-risk occupation. In addition to traditional currency circulation and credit issues, how to engage in a cross-regional financial industry is always a question. It is a difficult problem. Therefore, before the Qing Dynasty, it was rare to see enterprises engaged in large-scale financial business. If there were, they were all localized and localized financial operators, so as to avoid possible wind directions as much as possible.

However, in the Qing Dynasty, Shanxi merchants, commonly known as "Shanxi merchants", opened their financial business to the whole country and were known as the richest people in the country. The Qiao Family Courtyard and Wang Family Courtyard that are still preserved in Shanxi today are the Shanxi merchants of that era. sign of success.In such an era of numerous checkpoints and rampant corrupt officials, how did Shanxi merchants achieve such a scale, especially cross-regional financial circulation?It's incredible.But in fact the secret is also very simple, relying on innovation.

In the traditional era, banknotes have not yet formed a general equivalent, and market transactions mainly rely on silver taels.At that time, the biggest bottleneck in the development of the financial industry was the issue of "remittance", the question of how to safely withdraw the silver I deposited in a bank in another bank.It was Shanxi "Rishengchang" who first solved this problem by opening a ticket number for universal deposit and withdrawal. In 1823, China's first private financial institution, Rishengchang Bank, which means "rising like the sun and prospering", was born.After the establishment of Rishengchang Bank, the business flourished and the business developed rapidly. By 1850, it had established branches in Beijing, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Chongqing, Sanyuan, Kaifeng, Guangzhou, Hankou, Changde, Nanchang, Xi'an, Changsha, Chengdu, Qingjiangpu, Jinan 18 towns including Shanghai, Zhangjiakou, Tianjin, and Hekou established semicolons, and after 1886, five more semicolons were established in Shashi, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Xiangtan, and Guilin.As a result, a complete set of deposit and withdrawal services has been formed in the financial industry on a national scale.For a while, Rishengchang was rich in financial resources. In 1906 alone, it made a profit of 583762 silver taels. Even in the late Qing Dynasty, the country had to rely on Rishengchang bank for building railways.

Looking back on this period of history, I don't really want to learn any specific financial knowledge from there, but to tell everyone a truth: in any era, business-related profits always depend on innovation, not others. Business in particular deserves important historical lessons.After the advent of the Internet era, various industries tried to connect their industries with the Internet, and created many new things related to the Internet.However, some of these new things are gradually growing, and even replace the original business model, but some of them are just passing clouds, "their prosperity is also sudden, and their decline is also sudden."The real innovations are always those entrepreneurs who are actively developing and moving forward steadily. What they value is not the benefits of a moment and a place, but the people who really improve product design from the perspective of user experience. They will eventually be changed from this Obtain a steady stream of "profit" in the world.

Internet business can be said to be a product of a half-new era. During its birth and growth, everyone is watching and caring for it.Some brave trendsetters are also groping hard, trying to find a patternable and risk-controllable way to maintain the unique advantages of Internet business, while not abandoning the spirit of safety and control required by traditional business.Regardless of whether these explorations succeed or fail in the future, they will eventually become the wealth left by our generation to the next generation who will be connected to the Internet from birth to old age, sickness and death.

I solemnly recommend this "Internet Business Thinking" that will be remembered by the times!
Vice President of Shenzhen Manager Media
Editor-in-Chief of Manager Magazine

Zeng Liping

2014 in Shenzhen

(End of this chapter)