Entrepreneur IP needs to evolve from a "traffic actor" to a "spiritual leader"

In the digital age, the influence of entrepreneurs' personal brands has become increasingly prominent, becoming a new dimension of corporate competitiveness. This article explores in depth how entrepreneurs can transform from "Internet celebrity IP" that pursues traffic to "leader IP" with far-reaching influence. The article analyzes five different ways of shaping entrepreneurs' IP and emphasizes the importance of finding the right "media main battlefield".

This year, one of the most common news I heard was "Boss X has started making jokes! He even broadcasted it live!"

Ever since Lei Jun took over a marketing department, the bosses who we thought were "serious" have all started their own IP careers, either voluntarily or forced to do so.

For example, Geely Chairman Li Shufu, Chery Automobile Chairman Yin Tongyue, Nezha Automobile CEO Zhang Yong, and even the always low-key Great Wall Motor Chairman Wei Jianjun, all live-streamed their weekends.

A few days ago, Zhang Chaoyang said in a conversation: "Becoming an Internet celebrity is also part of the entrepreneurial spirit." The marketing departments of companies almost had a collective epiphany: "As long as the founder is promoted to a 'top star', this company will be able to flourish."

But in my opinion, if a company follows the idea of ​​Internet celebrities to create an entrepreneur IP, it will go astray. Because the purpose of an entrepreneur creating an IP should not be to grab traffic, but we should use the more warm entrepreneur IP to promote the brand narrative and win brand believers.

01 Entrepreneur IP transformation: from Internet celebrity IP to leader IP

I divide the current ways entrepreneurs shape IP into five types:

1. Traffic Buyer

The so-called "traffic buyer" refers to an entrepreneur's IP creation method that injects large traffic into his own account through diversion methods such as live broadcast, reward or replacement.

For example, the founder of a certain store went to Dong Yuhui's live broadcast room and gave out gifts crazily. In layman's terms, this method is to spend money to buy traffic. But it is obvious that simple and crude traffic purchase cannot create an entrepreneur's IP.

2. Traffic Pioneer

Traffic pioneers are founders who rush to the front line of marketing and transform themselves into big anchors to sell products for the company.

For example, Lao Luo, the shirt brand, is the biggest anchor of his own brand, and the entire live broadcast room is centered around him promoting and selling products. Ms. Zhang Lan is also the biggest anchor of Ma Liuji, and she insists on live broadcasting even when she is sick.

This model of turning the founder into the company's big anchor and big salesperson can amplify the founder's personal charm and bring incremental business, but its biggest drawback is that it will create extreme dependence on the founder.

3. Traffic "actors"

Traffic "actors" refer to founders who gain traffic by creating topics.

This type of boss usually has a good sense of the Internet and knows how to attract traffic.

For example, Mr. Zhou Hongyi planned the auction of Maybach and sat on the roof of a car like a car model at the auto show to allow people to take pictures.

However, this method only obtains traffic at the attention level. Even if the traffic comes in, it cannot be retained and cannot form a brand effect. People cannot establish an impression and perception of this brand or company, nor can they establish trust in the founder.

4. Traffic Celebrities

Traffic celebrities become the object of envy or attention of fans by packaging their own lifestyle.

Many second-generation entrepreneurs’ accounts on TikTok follow this model. People are not disgusted by them, and may even voluntarily make purchases because they recognize and envy their lifestyles.

For example, in the comment section of Holiland's second son Luo Cheng's videos, you can always see messages asking him to lower the price of a certain Holiland model. But it is still far from the level where they can get a group of people to unconditionally support the main business behind them just by shouting.

5. Traffic Godfather

There is another type of entrepreneur IP, which is to become a traffic godfather like Jobs, Musk, and Lei Jun. Like the godfather, they have their own doctrines, infect their own organizations with their clear values ​​and spiritual core, and have the appeal of a hundred people, so people will naturally believe in him and follow him.

For example, when Lei Jun was promoting Xiaomi SU7, he said: "I will fight for Xiaomi Auto! Making cars is hard, but success must be cool." At the car delivery ceremony, he personally helped the car owner open the car door. In essence, he infected users, partners, and even his peers with his values.

This type of entrepreneur is particularly good at understanding user thinking, how to create content, and how to communicate with users. People's feelings towards entrepreneurs have evolved from attention to trust, and even to blind obedience.

For most entrepreneurs, becoming a traffic influencer is not the best solution. You have to work hard to become a "leader IP". Because the world of influencers is fast-growing and fast-fading, only by becoming an opinion leader in the industry or even society and taking on greater responsibilities can you leverage greater business.

02 Internet celebrity IP VS leader IP, what is more important than omni-channel operation is to find the "media main battlefield"!

Another mistake entrepreneurs make when creating IP is to operate across all channels. Because traffic is distributed across various media channels, no single channel can absorb all online users, so people often hope that Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, Video Account, Xiaohongshu, Xiaoyuzhou, and Bilibili will all benefit from it.

But in fact, there are very few entrepreneurs like Lei Jun who are top Vs on multiple platforms. 99% of people can only achieve results on one platform, and the operations of other platforms are just "running along".

The reason behind this is not just that entrepreneurs have limited energy and cannot take care of all media platforms on the Internet at the same time. The more important reason is that each platform has its own content style and operation ideas. Almost no one has the energy and ability to customize different content according to the characteristics of different media platforms.

The term "omni-channel operation" of IP is not accurate. It is more accurate to say "global distribution of the same batch of content". Therefore, omni-channel operation does not mean equal distribution of effort. The premise of omni-channel operation is to find the "main media battlefield"! Customize content around the "main media battlefield", and then distribute this content through omni-channels, with only minor adjustments made to different media platforms.

The main media battlefields chosen by Internet celebrity IPs and leader IPs are different. Internet celebrity IPs generally focus on outputting lifestyles, and they will choose interest platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin as their main battlefields. For example, Luo Cheng, the boss of Holiland, and Ding Jiamin, the second princess of Xtep, etc. Because the attributes of these media platforms are more entertaining, lifestyle content is easier to generate traffic.

Leader IPs usually focus on outputting values ​​and social issues. They prefer to choose the WeChat ecosystem dominated by video accounts and public opinion platforms such as Weibo to express their opinions, such as Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, and Li Xiang of Ideal Auto, because such platforms are more suitable for the fermentation of social content and are more in line with the status of entrepreneurs.

We take the WeChat ecosystem with video accounts as the core as an example to explain the importance of choosing the right media battlefield.

In April this year, Yin Tongyue, 62-year-old chairman of Chery Automobile, did a long-distance high-speed smart driving live broadcast on Video Account, with his good friend Luo Zhenyu and automotive media person Wu Pei in the car. This live broadcast was to promote a new car of Chery, Xingtu Xingjiyuan ET.

If this live broadcast is put on interest platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, it is actually difficult to leverage the maximum traffic value of Yin Tongyue, Luo Zhenyu and Wu Pei. Compared with ordinary people, the biggest advantage of entrepreneurs in creating IP is that they are naturally celebrities in the industry and can migrate real social relationships to the Internet. For all entrepreneurs, you may not get more traffic than other big Vs in the public domain, so you must fully mobilize your social circle to amplify the influence of the content.

Because Chery's long-distance high-speed intelligent driving live broadcast was posted on the video account, it was natural for Yin Tongyue, Luo Zhenyu, and Wu Pei to forward the live broadcast on their Moments. Chery's dealers, employees, and core consumers can also forward it with one click.

Interest platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu have different traffic recommendation mechanisms for different people. Your content must always be stimulating and have hot spots to continuously harvest traffic. But it is obvious that the founder of a company cannot have the time to exploit hot spots like professional Internet celebrities.

The traffic recommendation mechanism of the video account is more friendly to entrepreneurs because it is driven by "interest + social".

On the video account, as long as your friends and your friends' friends continue to like and forward your content, your content will continue to be recommended.

Moreover, when social interaction among acquaintances forms a communication network, it means that there are a large number of acquaintances standing up for you and endorsing you, and the entrepreneur's remarks will become more authentic and credible in the eyes of the public.

During this live broadcast, Yin Tongyue also created many "golden sentences". For example, "The problem of science and engineering men is that they make things that users like regardless of cost", "Our marketing is a shortcoming, learn from Yu Chengdong and Lei Zong", etc. These remarks were continuously discussed and interpreted by various media accounts, forming new content deposited in the WeChat ecosystem, which formed a reflux of traffic.

When other people search and click on these contents in the WeChat ecosystem, these related contents become the entrepreneur’s social endorsement and social business card, allowing partners to fully understand the entrepreneur’s values ​​and work style, and lowering the threshold of trust.

03 Trends in Entrepreneurial IP: From Single-core IP to IP Industry Matrix

I have summarized an entrepreneurial IP building formula:

Good Entrepreneur IP = (Mental Connection + Digital Connection) x Business Connection

Most companies only value digital connections, ignoring mental connections and business connections. In other words, most entrepreneurs are just managing accounts, staying at the level of being an internet celebrity or a streamer, rather than becoming opinion leaders, and have not truly empowered the company's brand and business lines.

The so-called mind connection actually means that an entrepreneur has become a big V with millions of fans on a certain platform, but this does not mean that he has gained the trust and respect of users. When he becomes a celebrity, it does not mean that his company's products can also become an Internet celebrity product.

The so-called business connection means that when an entrepreneur becomes an IP, his ultimate goal is to empower his company and business and bring in actual revenue. We should pay special attention to the fact that bringing in actual revenue to the business is different from bringing in goods in the live broadcast room.

Take car companies as an example. It is difficult for an Internet celebrity entrepreneur to sell out all the new models he will launch this year in the live broadcast room like Lei Jun did. If he wants to achieve business growth, he must lay out his own IP industry matrix on the Internet while doing IP, so that the traffic can be taken over and converted.

As mentioned earlier, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, live-streamed his weekend life on the video account. At the end of June this year, he drove the new intelligent driving version of the full-scenario NOA to challenge the four "devil sections" in Chongqing.

While Mr. Wei was live streaming, Great Wall Motors’ matrix accounts, including Great Wall Cannon, Weipai New Energy, Tank SUV, Ora Auto, and Haval SUV, also followed the live streaming and posted links to retain information. After the live streaming, the reservation conversion rate increased by 55%.

After the live broadcast, they also selected more than 40 experts from the automotive and technology circles from the Tencent Advertising Selection Platform to interpret Great Wall Motors' new products from different perspectives.

An entrepreneur IP that can truly drive business is not about making a popular account, but about building its own communication network to drive and lead the company's business. It is said that more than 70% of car companies have already started broadcasting on video accounts.

Taking car companies as an example, let’s look at their IP industry layout on video accounts. It can basically be divided into three major sections: official account matrix, KOX content matrix, and KOS/factory store live broadcast matrix. Behind each section there is a rigorous content dissemination purpose and layout logic.

Many automobile brands are building their own official account matrix. For example, BYD has BYD Auto, BYD Auto Dynasty, BYD Auto Ocean, etc. The purpose of these official accounts is to shape the brand's influence, so their content is often based on promotional videos, auto show news, etc. to convey brand values.

The KOX content matrix of a brand includes several types of people: the first type is corporate executives, which we call KOBs. For example, Xiaomi has Lei Jun and Xu Fei. The second type is corporate employees, KOLs, KOCs, etc. The common feature of these people is that they are familiar with the company's philosophy, products, and even technical details.

Therefore, they can present the brand's values ​​in a concrete way, tell you who the brand is, where the brand is going, the story behind product development, and the experience of the product itself in a warmer way, thereby deepening the relationship with users and partners.

Once a user knows and trusts a brand, timely follow-up by KOS, KOL and dealers can more directly bring about retention conversion, and welfare incentives can double the effect.

An entrepreneur may be able to briefly become famous and promote his business by developing a single-core IP, but only by building his own IP industry matrix can you truly empower your brand and different business lines.

To sum up

Just like leveraging marketing is not the same as posting hot posters in the circle of friends, an entrepreneur's IP is not the same as opening an account to do live broadcasts. An entrepreneur's IP needs not only traffic but also credibility, not only updates but also personality. IP, like a brand, is just a means of communication and an expression interface. It is not the number of people that matters, but the hearts of the people.