Weibo Ge Jingdong: The big transformation of the founder’s IP, evolving from an internet celebrity IP to a leadership IP.

This article uses an interview with Ge Jingdong, the senior vice president of Weibo Marketing, to help you understand why Weibo can create a "founder IP". This article is also recommended for companies or individual business owners.

One of the things we are doing now is to support founders to join Weibo and help them build their own IP. Many people build founder IP with the idea of ​​becoming an Internet celebrity, which I think is not quite right. It is not that being an Internet celebrity is bad, but because the purpose of founders building IP is to empower their own business, not just to gain traffic and exposure. The idea of ​​building founder IP advocated by Weibo is to use the founder IP to expand the social influence of the company and ultimately form market leadership.

1. Become a "tower" instead of a traffic-based influencer

Create IP according to the idea of ​​traffic influencers. For example, some second-generation entrepreneurs will show luxury cars and luxury houses in videos. Your business may gain short-term attention, but you will only become the object of envy of a small group of fans, instead of being recognized for your way of doing things and your corporate philosophy. People may buy your goods because they yearn for your lifestyle, but it is difficult for them to follow you spiritually. The more realistic situation is that the flowering period of traffic influencers is usually very short. The daily work of the founder of a company is very busy. You can't think about how to get traffic every day, and your flowering period may be shorter. We believe that if a founder wants to truly empower his company's business, he must not only be a traffic influencer, but also become a "high tower".

The so-called "tower" is where the founder expresses the values ​​he believes in and opposes. Through the collision of ideas, he lets more people know about his business, attracts people to approach him actively, and even becomes a spiritual leader.

Just like people follow Lei Jun, not only because Xiaomi's products are cost-effective, but also because they are infected by his values. When he said "Always believe that good things are about to happen" and "Go forward courageously", it actually injected a force into our hearts.

If a founder wants to become a tower, he must be someone who can inject this kind of energy into the public. Moreover, to become a "tower" entrepreneur, you must pay more attention to the influence of the public domain. Because only in places with "centralized" traffic can you efficiently aggregate public attention, rather than having your influence cut by thousands of people in thousands of ways by algorithms.

In the past two years, everyone has a habit of opening the hot search after entering Weibo to see what new things happened today. Everyone has reached a consensus that Weibo is a place where public domain traffic can still be obtained today. What you get on other platforms is the precise traffic recommended by algorithms, and it is difficult to get the public domain traffic that everyone pays attention to.

The purpose of being a founder IP is not to make users envy your life, but to convey your beliefs and ways of doing things to the society and shape social influence. If you want to lead the public's values, you can't just rely on the precise traffic of the algorithm, but also send signals on the public domain platform.

2. Collision of content with users on the “square”

Although everyone is talking about user orientation all the time. But I found that the way founders convey content is still one-way communication, without any collision of ideas with users. If users don't discuss you, they won't participate in the brand narrative at all. When founders create IP, they must constantly attract users to participate in the company's topics. Only when your content can be discussed can it generate self-propagation. Weibo itself is a natural topic discussion square. The advantage of the square is that people of different roles, genders, and identities gather here, including celebrities, big Vs, your users, your employees, and your opponents. Once a topic is discussed in the square, it will soon go viral.

In the early days of Xiaomi, the company discussed its products in forums and promoted them on Weibo. Over the years, Lei Jun has never stopped interacting with users on Weibo, and at most he can post 12 Weibo posts in a day.

There are countless hot topics happening on Weibo every day. You can find hot scenes and hot topics that can be combined with your products on Weibo, and use better narrative methods to attract a large number of users to participate in your content discussions, and finally make your content a hot topic.

Before SU7 was launched, Lei Jun launched a vote on Weibo to see “Which car under 500,000 yuan is the best looking?” A large number of users participated in the vote, which successfully sparked a series of speculations about the color and shape of the Xiaomi car.

Whether it is the founder's IP or brand marketing on Weibo, the idea of ​​communication is not to simply direct the content to a targeted group of people after producing it, but to find topics that can be leveraged and use the square characteristics of Weibo to quickly drive user participation.

On the Weibo platform, using topics to mobilize user participation is a good way to make content a hot topic.

3. Use original content to create natural "echoes"

Some people say that "founders of IP should have a global mindset". In fact, most founders do not have the energy to make a voice in all channels. Because people's demand for content is different on different platforms. I think that founders do not have to create a global IP, but they must learn to create original content. What is original content?

On May 10, "Singer 2024" was first released. What was unexpected was that after the show was broadcast, Na Ying only ranked third, and the top two places were taken by foreign singers. Everyone jokingly called this show "The Adventures of Na Ying". #Who will save Na Ying#, #Fifty-year-old woman guarding the national border# and other hot memes quickly became popular searches.

Then, Han Hong called out to the program team on Weibo, inviting singers to compete. The incident gradually began to ferment, and netizens began to help the program team to recruit people, calling on Phoenix Legend, Zhou Shen, Yang Zongwei, Li Jian, Yuan Yawei, Tan Weiwei, Deng Ziqi, Zhang Jie, Lin Zhixuan and other singers to come to the scene to stabilize the situation.

A singer’s failure in a competition on a variety show started on Weibo and fermented into a “big event” that attracted the attention of the entire network. This is the original content.

Since Weibo has the dual attributes of public opinion and news, a lot of content can be discussed on Weibo, become hot topics, and eventually spread to the entire Internet.

The reason why Xiaomi’s new car launch was able to sweep the entire Internet is that they have been building content around “origin content” over the past 1,000 days.

Before the release of SU7, a netizen commented on Zhang Songwen's Weibo, "Xiaomi cars will be on sale soon, has Mr. Lei prepared one for you?" Later, Lei Jun really sent a car to Zhang Songwen, and the topic #Lei Jun replied to Zhang Songwen# became the number one hot search. Then, the whole network began to discuss whether Lei Jun was a domineering president.

Are these topics popular and discussed because Lei Jun distributes content across the entire network? Obviously not. Lei Jun is hotly discussed, to a greater extent, because of the fermentation of content on Weibo.

When your thoughts explode on Weibo, the sound will reverberate on the platform, and everyone will be willing to pay attention to you and produce content around you.

Original content is more likely to resonate on Weibo because Weibo's traffic distribution is still based on attention rather than recommendation, and there is still natural "public domain traffic" here. Once your content is widely discussed, it will soon be noticed by others, and you don't need to radiate to the circle of friends to involve more people in discussion.

IV. Three criteria for founder IP to possess “leadership”

On Weibo, if you want to create a founder IP like Lei Jun or Li Xiang, I think there are three criteria:

1. Possessing socially responsible values

If the founder wants to be an idol in the largest public opinion field, he must export values ​​​​of social responsibility.

The so-called social responsibility values ​​mean that your life ideals and the purpose of your business are to benefit the entire society.

For example, Musk’s life ideal is to build a cross-planetary civilization. His purpose in Tesla is to “give mankind a sustainable future.” For example, Steve Jobs wanted to create great products, and Bawang Tea Lady wanted to make Chinese tea.

These values ​​sound "great, glorious and correct", but when they carry the fate of the nation and the rise and fall of mankind, the public will be inspired by them.

When a company wants to serve 1 billion people, it must demonstrate its social responsibility and tell the public what it believes in, what it opposes, and what it insists on. Only when people believe that the purpose of your business is to make the entire society a better place will they be willing to follow you.

2. User-oriented expression

Your values ​​can be grand, but the way you express your content must be "user-oriented."

Nowadays, many traditional companies still communicate with users in the same way: what do we, the founders, think about this? Let me tell you what to do… The whole article is still full of “leadership theory”. Such “daddy-like” arguments are actually very annoying when put on social platforms.

In fact, even grand values ​​can be implemented in a very approachable way, just like Lei Jun said that he wanted to be one of the top five car companies in the world, while bending down to open the car door for users and explaining the sun protection configuration of the car.

And Li Xiang said this when explaining the performance of the car:

"The queen seat on the front passenger side is also 12-way electrically adjustable, with seat heating (including leg rest heating), seat ventilation, and 16-point SPA massage as standard. This picture doesn't describe everything. This post is mainly for my wife."

I think these are the founders' true "user-oriented expressions". First, don't be pretentious. Even if you use professional vocabulary, you should use language that users can understand. Second, look at the user at eye level and explain all the content as if you were talking to a friend. The so-called user-oriented expression does not mean that you think for the user, but that both parties are on the same frequency. You must speak in a language that users can understand, because only when your expressions are on the same frequency can users accept your thoughts and your behavior.

3. Be brave to reveal your true self

Entrepreneurs have a burden on their image and are reluctant to reveal their inner thoughts. In front of the public, they tend to only show their good side. Some people choose to remain silent in the face of controversy, some people are obviously rebellious but restrain their edge, and some people have obviously gone through hardships in starting a business but only show their successful side.

However, if you want your values ​​to truly influence the public, you must not pretend, but must dare to express your true self in accordance with social rules.

Just like Musk not only said he would send humans to Mars, but sometimes he would openly challenge others to fights online. Many people hate him, and many people like him. But this just shows that he is a real person, not just a decoration.

Compared to accepting compliments, being able to accept others' complaints and ridicule is also a basic quality of an entrepreneur. Just like when someone complained about Lei Jun's English accent, he chose to laugh it off and said, "Now there are more and more international Mi fans. I really should learn English well and not let everyone down! Come on!"

Accepting your own imperfections calmly is not to show off your character, but only by accepting your own imperfections can you avoid being distorted by external comments and better maintain your true self.

To be a founder IP, you must always believe in the power of "truth". Because people always love and follow a specific person, not an abstract person. If you wear a mask of disguise, the day you can no longer pretend is the day your house collapses.

V. Conclusion

In the future, all founder IPs will evolve from Internet celebrity IPs to leadership IPs. The founder is the "soul" of a company. Only when the founder unswervingly allows his thoughts and values ​​to empower the business can he help his company gain market leadership.

Author: General Liang

WeChat public account: General Liang (ID: 1072398)