Lei Jun gained 6.56 million followers in 40 days, and Xiaomi executives began to venture into Douyin

As the influence of social media grows, corporate executives are beginning to realize the important role of personal IP in brand communication and public image building. This article will reveal the correct way to build a company's personal IP by reviewing the social media accounts of pioneers.

Baidu's former vice president Qu Jing's attempt to build a personal IP has temporarily failed, but Baidu's current employee's account "Xi'erqi Wei Sister" vividly demonstrates the necessity for companies to create content assets.

For example, when a company is at the center of public opinion, its employees’ personal accounts can at least increase the company’s voice channels and provide more diverse perspectives.

In the final analysis, the core reason why Qu Jing failed to create her own IP was a technical problem, not a direction problem. Moreover, the trend of enterprises building IP matrices is becoming more and more obvious. (Extended reading: "The number one PR person at Baidu became a Douyin influencer for 7 days")

For example, under the leadership of Lei Jun during this period, many bigwigs have affirmed the role of enterprises in building personal IP and incubating Internet celebrities, and have joined the market.

In addition to Zhou Hongyi, who called on entrepreneurs to learn how to become internet celebrities, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile and Avita, believes that "traffic is the productivity of future (enterprise) leaders." Li Bin, founder of NIO, said: "Short videos should be shot, otherwise others will not know who I am."

In this case, who should business owners and executives learn from? What is the right way to build a company's personal IP?

Recently, Xiaomi's senior management team, represented by Xiaomi Group President Lu Weibing, has joined Douyin, and the related topic #小米天团集体入抖音# has accumulated over 64 million views. The bosses and senior management of car brands such as Zeekr and Avita have also joined Weibo early on. Many bosses and senior management have begun to increase their personal IP, gradually forming the prototype of the corporate IP matrix.

By taking stock of the social media accounts of pioneers, we may be able to get some answers.

1. Lei Jun leads the Xiaomi team to enter Douyin

Xiaomi may be one of the companies that attaches the most importance to social media.

A few years ago, Lei Jun and a large number of Xiaomi executives opened personal Weibo accounts. Among them, Lei Jun and Lu Weibing's personal Weibo accounts have posted more than 17,000 and 13,000 posts respectively. In the first half month before the launch of Xiaomi SU7, Lei Jun posted an average of 5 Weibo posts a day, and on March 28, he posted 10 Weibo posts in a row.

Lei Jun and his senior executives' diligence has indeed paid off. Among many companies, Xiaomi may have the Weibo IP matrix with the largest number of fans and the strongest collective combat effectiveness.

In addition to Weibo, Xiaomi has also increased its investment in Douyin. According to a "Review of the Communication of the Xiaomi SU7 New Car Launch" circulated online, Xiaomi's advertising budget during the Xiaomi SU7's debut period alone may be as high as 20 million yuan.

With sufficient budget, Lei Jun first became popular on Douyin. With his life experience like the protagonist in a cool novel, he gained 6.56 million followers in 40 days. Currently, the number of followers of Lei Jun's personal Douyin account is rapidly approaching 20 million.

Driven by Lei Jun and Xiaomi SU7, a number of Xiaomi executives also took advantage of the traffic boom and achieved varying degrees of traffic growth. It was found that Xiaomi SU7 contributed a lot of popular videos to the personal Douyin accounts of Xiaomi executives.

Fan growth data of Redmi brand general manager Wang Teng, source: Xin Douyin.
So how do Lei Jun and other Xiaomi executives operate TikTok? Through analysis, we found several obvious similarities:

1. The video revolves around work

Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, emphasized in a recent live broadcast: "We will not do things that have traffic but no quality. We must strive to become a high-quality internet celebrity." The so-called high-quality internet celebrity can perhaps be understood in this way, that is, the content of business bosses and executives mostly revolves around the company and can bring positive empowerment to the company.

According to statistics from Xindou, Lei Jun's personal Douyin account has released a total of 30 videos in the past 30 days, most of which are about introducing Xiaomi SU7 and Xiaomi's car factory, and answering netizens' questions about Xiaomi SU7. So far this year, Lei Jun's few Douyin live broadcasts have also mostly revolved around Xiaomi SU7.

Apart from Lei Jun, the content of Lu Weibing's Douyin account is more like the president's daily work - attending the Beijing Auto Show, investigating Xiaomi Home in Hong Kong, experiencing the popular Xiaomi Canteen hemp twist... It can be said that Lu Weibing's videos have given many netizens a more concrete understanding of Xiaomi Group.

As the general manager of Redmi brand, Wang Teng's videos are closer to the products. Quick questions and answers about Turbo 3, a game of breaking news with digital blogger "Digital Chat Station", and "playing games" with Xiaomi phones... Wang Teng's videos let users know more about Xiaomi phones.

2. Be humble and friendly, and actively respond to netizens' jokes

In a company, bosses and executives are leaders, but on social media, the superior leadership image will definitely be criticized by netizens. Sun Dongxu, the former CEO of Dongfang Selection, who live-streamed a meeting, and Zhang Yong, the CEO of Nezha, who crossed his legs during a live broadcast, both proved this point.

Netizens compared Lei Jun and Zhang Yong's sitting postures during live broadcasts

In the videos, Lu Weibing and Wang Teng usually sit upright in front of the camera, rarely leaning on the boss chair, so as not to give people a sense of distance. Xiaomi executives also bring some nicknames into the video to get closer to netizens, such as "Brother Teng" for Wang Teng and "Aunt Xu" for Xu Fei. As the president of Xiaomi Group, Lu Weibing also regards himself as a worker and films his daily life as a worker.

It is worth noting that Lei Jun and Xiaomi executives interact with netizens very frequently and actively respond to netizens' memes.

In the video, Lei Jun retained the shouts of "Are You Ok" and "Xiaomi beats Tesla" from the audience; during the live broadcast, Lei Jun responded to many popular online memes such as "the male protagonist of a cool article" and "wearing the same clothes as Musk". The call back of the "billionaire CEO" greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of netizens to interact.

Because he has the same name as a famous supporting character in the popular novel "The Great Ruler", many netizens left comments in Wang Teng's comment section saying "Wang Teng has the appearance of a great emperor" and reminded him to be careful of Ye Fan, because in the novel, Wang Teng was beaten to death by Ye Fan. Coincidentally, the product director of Xiaomi happened to be named Jin Fan, which provided netizens with excellent material for jokes. Wang Teng also took the opportunity to shoot a video in response.

In addition, he encouraged Lu Weibing and Wang Teng to "get rid of Lei Jun, rebel and go it alone", invited Jin Fan, who was often scolded by Mi fans, to open a Douyin account, and prepared to have a good chat with him... Lei Jun and other Xiaomi executives also responded to these frequently appearing comments one by one.

3. Demonstrate a harmonious team atmosphere

In addition to bringing traffic to the company, business owners and executives who create personal IP also represent the image of the company and are part of displaying corporate culture and shaping the brand image. What Qu Jing was most criticized for was making controversial remarks in the capacity of a company, which led to doubts about Baidu's values ​​and affected Baidu's corporate image.

Lei Jun and Xiaomi executives' personal accounts rarely touch on controversial topics, and they often create videos together, which indirectly express the harmonious atmosphere of Xiaomi's management team and the "human touch" at work.

For example, Xu Fei shared in a video Wang Teng's flustered preparations before the live broadcast, and joked that "it was mainly a makeshift team". After Wang Teng hosted the Turbo 3 press conference, Lei Jun raised his thumb and said with a smile: "Our Redmi flag, President Teng, has held up."

Of course, Xiaomi’s personal IP matrix also has some issues worthy of attention.

First , apart from Lei Jun, Xiaomi has not yet produced more internet celebrity-level personal IPs. On Douyin, Xiaomi executives are more likely to have inherited the traffic of Lei Jun and Xiaomi SU7 and activated some Mi fans.

Lei Jun's sudden popularity is the result of the combined effect of multiple factors. If Lu Weibing, Wang Teng and others can become "small Lei Juns", Xiaomi's corporate IP matrix can play a greater value.

Second , the Weibo accounts of many Xiaomi executives are updated very infrequently, and some have not updated for more than a year.

This raises several questions: How can we get busy bosses and executives to continue to create content? Do companies need to mobilize all bosses and executives to create personal IP? If not, what is the most cost-effective combination?

2. Auto executives all open Weibo accounts, but they are still a little short of becoming internet celebrities

Not only Xiaomi, but also Zeekr, which just "rang the bell" on Nasdaq, has also built its own corporate IP matrix.

However, unlike Xiaomi, Zeekr’s main platform is Weibo, and its executives are the majority. Currently, Zeekr Chairman Li Shufu’s personal Weibo account has been inactive for many years, and Zeekr CEO An Conghui has not yet opened a social account.

Among the Zeekr executives who have opened personal Weibo accounts, CMO Guan Haitao posts quite frequently. He not only shares his own industry views and introduces Zeekr's brand efforts, interacting with Zeekr spokesperson Zhou Guanyu, but also actively allows Zeekr Auto to participate in the 360 ​​Auto Show organized by Zhou Hongyi.

Among the many vice presidents of Zeekr, Zhu Ling will share the progress of Zeekr's IPO in the United States on his personal Weibo account and answer related questions from the media, while Zhao Chunlin will help Zeekr dispel rumors.

Overall, Zeekr executives seem to treat Weibo as a Moments post, with the content mostly consisting of pictures and texts. There is no prominent account style, and the number of comments is mostly less than 100.

Changan Automobile and Avita are in a similar situation. In April this year, senior executives of Changan Automobile and Avita joined Weibo collectively, but many of them posted content that looked like official corporate microblogs, and most of them had fewer than 10,000 followers.

Obviously, although business owners and executives who have their own halos and resources have a higher starting point, it does not mean that they can easily attract user attention, interaction, or even become Internet celebrities.

Generally speaking, if a company wants to build its personal IP, it must do at least three things: choose the right people, find the right methods, and make plans.

1. There are thresholds for creating personal IP

Lei Jun's personal story, Luo Yonghao's keen sense of the internet, Zhang Chaoyang's "lying down temperament", Yu Minhong's PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds... Entrepreneurs who can become internet celebrities are often discovered because of a certain trait. Many industry insiders believe that Li Yanhong, who has a story, controversy, and good looks, is the person with the most internet celebrity temperament in Baidu.

In addition to innate talent, the ability to mobilize resources also affects the success rate of a company in building a personal IP. Wei Jianjun once said during a live broadcast, "I must be better than them (on-site senior executives) as an Internet celebrity, because I have an advantage, I am the boss."

Wei Jianjun may be one of the most old-school bosses in the automotive industry. He has a Douyin account for 23 days and has 420,000 followers.

2. Creating a personal IP requires the correct methodology

Xiaomi's IP matrix is ​​not created randomly. Recently, Lei Jun said in an interview with CCTV that he wrote and posted every piece of content on Weibo by himself. He would think of three or five pieces of content every morning and prepare them first. They were not written on the spur of the moment. According to media reports, Xiaomi had built a new media team of nearly 100 people as early as 2015.

When commenting on the Baidu Qu Jing incident, Zhou Hongyi once reminded: "Before I started making short videos, I watched a lot of tutorials on Douyin, and watched many big Vs teach novices how to create an account and how to make short videos, but I think most of their methods are suitable for amateurs with few resources, not for entrepreneurs and company executives. If you use the methods on Douyin, it's a bit like trying to find a sword by imitating a boat, going in the wrong direction, and talking at cross purposes."

Zhou Hongyi plans to do a live broadcast in the near future on how companies can build personal IP.

Large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises are in completely different ecological niches, and the situations in different industries are also very different. Companies should not rush to build their personal IP, but should take a steady and solid approach.

Many industry insiders believe that Qu Jing's big mistake was to learn from the knowledge blogger "Sea Cucumber Brother" who was banned by Douyin. Others can rely on outrageous remarks to attract traffic, but Qu Jing, as Baidu's vice president and the top public relations person, is not suitable.

3. Correctly understand the risks of personal IP of enterprises and make plans

Some people in the industry believe that business owners and executives should not build personal IPs. They should focus more on product creation and business operations. Being an Internet celebrity is not a proper job. In addition, no one is perfect. When bosses and executives stand in the spotlight, once they make a mistake, it may bring a public relations crisis to the company.

Everything has its pros and cons. Only by correctly understanding the benefits and risks of building personal IP can the company allocate resources reasonably and make corresponding plans.

The "2024 Enterprise New Media Brand Matrix Research Report" released by Xinbang Matrix mentioned that when building matrix accounts, enterprises can adopt a matrix layout of 1+X+K+N, that is, one main brand account + X self-operated accounts + N dealers or store accounts + K president's personal KOL or employee KOC accounts.

This diversified IP operation strategy can not only effectively reduce the risks and difficulties of the company's IP matrix, but also effectively promote the sustainable growth of the company: some build brand IP and establish emotional bonds with users; some shape the image of experts and win the trust of users; some tell brand stories and attract like-minded people; some promote product conversion and achieve growth goals.

It is understood that companies including Didi, Yiche, CITIC Securities, and Ningbo Bank have realized the importance of corporate IP matrix, and have begun to use Xinbang's multi-platform new media content asset management system "Matrix" to manage their social accounts and strengthen the accumulation of corporate content assets.

For example, a domestic high-end car company has many dealer accounts, with a wide range of account platforms, a large number of accounts, and complex departments involved. With the help of "Matrix Communication", the car company not only used a middle platform to achieve unified management of operations personnel and accounts, but also effectively reduced risk events by 70%.

Overall, driven by Lei Jun, companies are increasingly interested in building personal IP and incubating internet celebrities, but the industry has not yet formed a mature methodology and many companies are still exploring.

Who will be the next Lei Jun? Who can take the lead in building a mature corporate IP matrix? At some point in the future, can corporate IP help companies turn the tide and prove their value? Let us wait and see.

Author: Yun Feiyang; Editor: Zhang Jie

Source: WeChat public account "Xinbang"