The new king of Weibo, Zhou Shuo’s ＂Opening the Door to Build a Car＂

No matter whether you are an auto person in the industry or an ordinary consumer, as long as you are interested in cars and often brush Weibo, you must know a rising marketing star in Ran Ran: "Zhou Jinkai".

Zhou Jinkai is Zhou Shuo’s nickname in Weibo. He is the deputy general manager of the brand division of SAIC-GM-Wuling and is in charge of the marketing of Baojun brand.Since last year, Zhou Shuo’s Weibo account has increased from less than 1,000 fans to 220,000 fans today.

Judging from Weibo’s activity, Zhou Shuo’s activity is even worse than that of Li Xiang, the founder and CEO of LI, the former king of Weibo.Since August 2023, the total number of Weibo articles published by Zhou Shuo in the same period is even more than seven times that of Li Xiang.

Not only that, Zhou Shuo himself also brought a unique marketing method for rims:Open the door and build a car.

If Zhou Shuo and his marketing methods are judged by results-oriented, the total monthly insurance coverage of Bao Junyue and Bao Junyun Cloud is not enough to prove the feasibility of this methodology.

But looking at it from a distance,This marketing method can not only collect users’ needs more truly, but also improve the stickiness of their own users.And with the increasing importance of Weibo in the internal marketing of the main engine factory, Zhou Shuo is likely to bring more increment to Baojun with his unique Weibo personnel.

01

Unique marketer

Zhou Shuo revealed in his Weibo that a media person once described his marketing style as a "third sect" independent of the leadership of traditional car companies and new forces.

Observing Zhou Shuo’s own Weibo dynamics can also confirm this truth: Zhou Shuo’s identity is similar toTraditional car enterprise marketing, new force marketing, car media KOL and ordinary Weibo users.

First, let’s look at the total number of Weibo in the visible range of Zhoushuo.

In the visible range, Zhou Shuo’s first Weibo was published on May 4th, 2023. As of February 4th this year, the total number of Weibo dynamics was 1,491, which means that in less than one year,Zhou Shuo published 165.6 Weibo articles every month and 5.5 Weibo articles every day.Can be said to be a high-intensity surfer.

Li Xiang, who is also famous for his high-intensity surfing, published 89 Weibo articles from August 9, 2023 to February 4, 2024, with an average of 12 articles published every month.

In contrast, in terms of the frequency of publishing Weibo,Zhou Shuo can be said to be a new force than the new one.

However, at the beginning of Weibo’s operation, the contents released by Zhou Shuo still have a strong flavor of traditional car companies: no new ideas, no interaction, just introducing their own car models.

Zhou Shuo’s first Weibo didn’t have many characteristics.

But soon, Zhou Shuo changed his style.It is often possible to throw out interactive questions while promoting their own models.For example, ask consumers about the time of new car launch, the purpose of new car, the choice of pricing and promotion policies, and evenSend some plans of the conference held by our team to Weibo to collect users’ opinions.

Perhaps it was this "questioning" marketing method in Weibo that made Zhou Shuo taste the sweetness. Since then, Zhou Shuo can be said that any information will be released on Weibo, as small as the brand and as big as Baojun’s model planning, it will be released on Weibo for the first time to listen to your opinions.

As the deputy general manager of the brand division of a traditional car company, it seems that Zhou Shuo is the first to adopt such a marketing method.

Zhou Shuo called this marketing method "building a car by opening the door".As the name implies, it is the antonym of building a car behind closed doors. Before the product is officially put on the market and delivered in mass production, it fully listens to the user’s voice and makes timely adjustments to the product to achieve the result of satisfying the user and paying the bill.

Zhou Shuo takes advantage of Weibo users’ needs and adjusts products in time.

In fact, it is not Zhou Shuo’s unique label to be willing to listen to outside voices and polish and rectify product functions in time.

A certain media once told Haitao Xue, a member of the Executive Committee of SAIC-GM-Wuling Co., Ltd., that "Bingo’s steering wheel steering damping is too little" in a communication meeting on the eve of its listing. Subsequently, Haitao Xue immediately contacted his own engineers to discuss how to solve this problem.

However, at that time, Haitao Xue faced the professional media, while Zhou Shuo directly faced the most real car demand of users.

For example, after Bao Junyue was also delivered to the market, car owners often left messages in Weibo, Zhou Shuo, asking if they could launch extended-range and five-door models.

At the end of the second quarter, Zhou Shuo revealed that the whole team had communicated with relevant suppliers many times, and had discussed the scheme of refitting the extended range version after installation. Even the five-door version of Bao Junyue also landed in the 379th batch of Announcement on Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products, which will be officially listed this year.

The result is a win-win situation:Users participated in the process of product research and development in the way of "building cars in the cloud", and Zhou Shuo also created momentum for new products in advance, ensuring the basic sales volume at the beginning of the product launch.

However, although the way of opening the door to build a car has gained traffic, it has also limited the sales performance of the model to a certain extent.

Judging from the data of insurance coverage, from May to December, 2023, the total monthly insurance coverage of Baojun Yueye and Baojun Yunyun was in the early 3000, which barely took over the banner of sales from Baojun KiWi EV.

But in Weibo, the information that Zhou Shuo can collect is obviously limited, and the mainstream consumers in the market are still the silent majority.If the product does not grasp the greatest common denominator of users’ needs, but is biased by the preferences of a few users, it is very likely that watermelon will be lost for sesame.

Zhou Shuo and Bao Jun also know this well, and the most obvious example is Bao Junyue. Although this product has the potential to become an explosion (entry-level off-road vehicle), the configuration of its two versions also makes it a "big toy" rather than a family car with a wider audience.

From the very beginning, Baojun may have intended to launch a five-door version of Yueye to enter a larger market, and Zhou Shuo’s move to collect users’ needs may just be to push the boat.

02

Similar to Li Xiang, but slightly different.

In any case, Zhou Shuo’s marketing method is really rare in the car circle, and his "head of new and new forces marketing from traditional car companies" and "founder of open-door car school" have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

In fact, Zhou Shuo’s methodology is probably the same as LI’s success.

AL Ries, chairman of Reese Consulting, emphasized in his book "Marketing Revolution"Focus on product positioning, tactics determine strategy, and management goes deep into the front line.The importance, and LI is relying on Li ONE products to focus on the family market, constantly copying dolls, and promoting family labels as the main tactic of play to succeed.

In addition, Li Xiang is the number one representative of the main engine factory in Weibo for high-intensity surfing, which ensures that LI can constantly replicate the process of success after seizing the opportunity of explosion.

At this time, Zhou Shuo is also trying to follow this style of play. andZhou Shuo himself once revealed that he would have a meal with Li Xiang every year and communicate for hours.It is not surprising that there are similarities between their marketing methods.

However, although their marketing styles are roughly the same, they are still slightly different.

For example, Li Xiang’s Weibo content is mainly to promote his own products. Although he often interacts with KOL, it is basically limited to his own "own troops".

But Zhou Shuo is not limited to marketing his own products.Even their daily test drive of other new energy products should be shared on Weibo, seeking aspects that people from all walks of life need to pay attention to when testing specific vehicles.It seems that I don’t care whether my own dynamics will drain the competing products.

It is precisely because Zhou Shuo himself often mentions and tests various new energy vehicles, so he has interacted with Zhou Shuo from Tan Benhong, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Changan Automobile, Xia Yiping, CEO of Jiyue, to KOL.This also helped Zhou Shuo and Bao Jun to further expand their brand awareness and product audience.

Zhou Shuo and Xia Yiping interact to discuss AI big model getting on the bus.

In addition, Zhou Shuo is different from Li Xiang because of his questioning interaction. Asking more questions will reduce the sense of distance when interacting with users, and also increase the user’s sense of participation and improve the user’s stickiness.

However, Li thinks that although he won’t publish Weibo to actively ask consumers’ opinions and real needs, it doesn’t mean that he won’t pay attention to users’ real pain points. From his praise and comments, we can see that Li Xiang himself often comes to various media and KOL Weibo’s comment area to answer questions one by one, and even goes off to refute rumors when he sees some misunderstood questions.

In a word, both marketing guru are very good at using the platform of Weibo to collect users’ opinions and feed back the production and R&D of their own products.And this model is also becoming the inevitable trend of the whole automobile circle marketing.

03

Weibo will become the main battlefield.

With the gradual expansion of new energy vehicles, it is nothing new for the management of OEMs to enter social media.

From Tesla CEO Musk, to Li Xiang and Zhou Shuo, to the executives of Great Wall and Weilai who collectively settled in Weibo last year, even Nezha CEO Zhang Yong made a painful decision to take charge of marketing himself and began to be active on Weibo.

It is an inevitable result that Weibo will become the marketing OEM of future OEMs.

First of all,Weibo platform can create opportunities for car executives to directly contact consumers, and let the management personally listen to the real feedback from the first-line market.Only by truly understanding the market demand can the management flexibly adjust the product strategy and formulate marketing tactics to directly hit the pain point of market demand.

Zhou Shuo publicizes the back row space of Baojun Yunduo.

In the past, executives obtained this kind of information, mostly through the reports of employees in the company. The information obtained was either embellished or deliberately deleted, which was somewhat lacking in authenticity.

This model will easily lead to the OEM’s narcissism, ignoring the shortcomings and problems of its own products, and even if the product sales are not good, it will be blamed on the market problems, rather than looking for reasons from itself.

Secondly, due to the characteristics of Weibo, it canLet the OEM not miss any publicity opportunity.Except for Weibo, the communication rhythm of OEMs is mostly tied to their own product launch conferences and test drive activities, lacking the ability to respond flexibly to emergencies and ignoring some communication opportunities.

For example, under normal circumstances, OEMs will not launch publicity activities for the new product "Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Product Announcement".

However, in May last year and January this year, Zhou Shuo publicized and warmed up in Weibo when two new products, Baojun Yunduo and Baojun Yueye PLUS, entered the Announcement of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products, which started to arouse consumers’ appetite very early.

Executives can use Weibo to "rub" their own products into the hot spots of the announcement

For example, Weibo, the official of Chery Automobile, has also responded quickly to the Chery Mercedes-Benz incident in the near future. Although this incident is controversial,This also proves that the social media platform empowers the OEM to respond quickly.

In addition, executives walk from behind the scenes to the stage, and they have their own traffic attributes. If we can interact with other executives and OEMs, or flatter each other, or bicker from a distance, we can constantly enlarge our brand awareness, and save the next marketing expenses while playing a multiplier effect.

On the whole, it is an inevitable trend that Weibo will become the main battlefield of the marketing wars of various OEMs in the future.Whether it is Zhou Shuo’s open-door car-making method or the technical interpretation and product promotion carried out by other executives, it is one of the means of publicity.

However, at present, Zhou Shuo, who has established a firm foothold with the method of building a car by opening the door, is likely to bring more possibilities to his own products with his personal influence in Weibo in the future.