Micro Quotient = Pyramid Selling? Is There Any Future For Social Networking Providers?

Once upon a time, socialized electricity providers were once considered to be

The future trend of platform can break through the bottleneck of traffic distribution of the third party platform, the key lies in the social business.

To this end, 800 million users occupy the mobile Internet traffic entry social platform WeChat, is considered to be the biggest threat to subverting the Taobao business ecosystem, alliance Jingdong, open WeChat public platform, force WeChat payment, there is a lot of blood washing clap the electricity supplier before the shame of gunpowder.

So that the stable head of the Alibaba will not be calm, with $586 million stake in Sina micro-blog, the data interface to ban WeChat sources, layout of mobile social networking products, micro Amoy.

Looking at the e-commerce situation, two horses will eventually launch a fierce battle in the field of social business.

However, over the past year or so, the concept of social networking has rarely been mentioned. Instead, it is the "micro business" generated by WeChat's social ecology, which is caused by social circles such as friends circle, electricity supplier, and micro shop.

In the circle of friends, selling mask, selling eyelashes, selling women's clothing, selling beads and some overseas purchasing business are more and more. The monthly flow of water can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of standards, creating a myth of creating wealth, but also releasing the whole imagination of the future.

Micro business trapped in "pyramid selling" dilemma

However, the good times are not long. Recently, micro businesses have fallen into the muzzle of "pyramid selling".

In fact, it is called "pyramid selling" is not appropriate, there is a little public sentiment on the exclusion of disgust, because pyramid selling is directly to develop the "head" lower limit for illegal profits, the core of micro business, after all, is the commodity itself, only in the business mode deviation, contaminated with the "pyramid selling" taste.

If everyone in accordance with the concept of electricity providers, micro business with the help of

The platform can be a great success. Why is it now being "pyramid selling"? The reason is that the micro business is morbid, and the living environment is becoming more and more difficult.

First, in the early stage of WeChat's social networking platform, people who try to do micro business are relatively few, close to the essence of business, and the whole micro business ecosystem is relatively benign. Indeed, many micro owners earn money, but with the proliferation of entrepreneurs and the number of competitors, the selling of the same products is facing fierce competition.

Two, at the very beginning, social software is still a relatively new product. There are individual business people in the circle of friends. As long as they are not severely brushed, people still have a certain degree of acceptance. Now, WeChat has become mature in ecology, and the relationship between acquaintances has basically been established. The public is more disgusted with selling too many brushwork screens to friends and friends circle. If they encounter, they will automatically shield them. The proportion of effective users in the social relations chain accumulated by many micro dealers is getting smaller and smaller.

Three, for a long time, with the help of WeChat platform, WeChat's official attitude is to turn a blind eye. But with the deterioration of the micro business ecosystem, WeChat is under pressure and has to implement a series of platform policies to suppress it.

For example: restricting WeChat public account guide sharing, limiting WeChat friends 5000 people upper limit, strengthening reporting processing and so on.

All kinds of difficulties have changed the logic of doing business in micro businesses. In the past, it was based on commodity trading, and now it is a profit making point by expanding the agent level. If there are 10 agents at a level, there will be 50 to 100 two agents at the bottom of each agent. In the end, the total generation does not need to worry about whether the goods are actually sold to consumers.

But what about the products, how the consumers use it, and how much they care about it.

How far is micro business away from social business?

From the perspective of the situation,

The situation is not optimistic, does it mean that the "social business" is heading for a desperate end? To clarify this problem, we need to clarify the relationship between micro dealers and social business providers.

Mature social business ecosystem should be like this.

First, the flow problem: the social platform itself is a huge flow entry, the user viscosity is relatively high, most of the user fragmentation time is spent on social software, if these traffic into electricity supplier flow, its business value can not be predicted, and these traffic are naturally a small circle of ecology, a sales mask, as long as there are 1000 female potential customer groups, business will continue to do so, in contrast, the traditional electricity supplier ecology is essentially the concept of real estate rental, too centralized, too many stores rely on the platform's advertising recommendation, search optimization recommendations, traffic distribution ceilings.

Two, trust problem: the traditional electricity supplier ecosystem needs to rely on the third party platform as a trust intermediary support, which requires a long time of accumulation and habit training.

The social platform naturally has the genes of acquaintances, and it is easy for users to establish trust and reduce paction thresholds.

Many micro businesses are now paying first and then shipping. There is no guarantee of the third party platform. The trust of users plays a leading role.

Three, communication issues: the traditional electricity supplier eco word-of-mouth and brand reference standards are consumer reputation evaluation. This kind of hard reference is effective, but there may be fraudulent practices of brushes and rewards. Besides, these word of mouth information is still hidden and needs to be searched autonomously.

The new social networking eco word-of-mouth is spread in the familiar world. Sharing and communication will spread rapidly through the circle of friends. The dissemination effect of a good reputation is cascade, and it is easy to be magnified through the two spread.

As a primary mode of social business, micro business can enjoy all the dividends of flow, trust and communication. Everything is out of control in the early stage of development, and if some good aspects are not used well, it will easily cause negative effects.

From the micro business to the full-scale outbreak of social business, what we need is just time to accumulate and precipitate. New problems are emerging and new solutions are emerging. The trend is not to be blocked, is it?

Challenges facing social networking providers

The outbreak of the micro business out of the nature of the business of the sick, as a micro business to explore the social business model to explore a larger obstacle, skip this prospect is very good, but not life and death.

However, the exposure of premature problems can make us aware of the serious challenges that may exist in the social e-commerce model.

First, Internet giants slow down.

Over the past year, social networking is not as hot as it was a year ago. The reason for this is that Ali and Tencent seem to have slowed down the pace of exploration in this area. In addition to the shadow of the layout of the electricity supplier, micro-blog and WeChat's platform wars can be seen for some time.

Ali this year, the focus of publicity is also on the Taobao wireless terminal, and how many voices are there in the social networking products such as exchanges and micro Amoy? Tencent is even more concerned about the strategic layout of WeChat's eyebrows and moustache. Engaging in social games depends on the game of a plane, making local O2O layout, and making strategic shares in 58 cities; making micro video layout, trying to set off a new era of video based on a small video; what exactly does WeChat want to do?

The current Internet environment, conceptual direction, if there is no giant's pinch and layout, it is bound to slow down half way to develop.

Two, how to play the "out of control" of centralization? After all, the biggest difference between social business and traditional e-commerce is the release of trust.

Social networking business is centralization, but going to the center does not mean that there is no platform rules to guide. The form of runaway is essentially more advanced and invisible.

Now Taobao will make use of the social elements in micro-blog's ecosystem to help the electronic business platform to guide the flow, with micro-blog's export of word of mouth and brand, and do promotional activities.

The layout of WeChat's social business is obviously laissez faire. It just keeps the most basic platform rules of the product, and controls the problem.

The outbreak of the micro commercial crisis, WeChat also can not escape its blame.

For example: how to pfer the micro business users to the micro stores, with the help of the rules of the micro shop platform, regulate the chain of interests of agents, or how to integrate the WeChat public platform and circle of friends, and make a certain balance between user experience and product diversion.

Obviously, WeChat has a closed attitude towards it, and it has not acted as a tacit control and guidance function of a platform, so that it has become a morbid evil of "pyramid selling".

Three, SNS+ business, how to interoperate scenarios? Users have a potential habit and awareness, on Taobao platform will be assured of shopping and consumption, and on micro-blog, WeChat and other social platforms, natural entertainment is entertainment.

SNS+ electricity supplier, there is a scene pition problem.

From the perspective of simple user habits to explain the difficulty of the integration of the two, there is a certain truth, simulate a scenario, such as: good friends for a long time did not contact, suddenly greeting yourself, the first sentence is, I recently bought a product, it is very good to use, in my friend circle first, you also buy it.

Users are very unaccustomed to the elements of e-commerce in social relations.

But in the long run, the key point of the future electricity supplier is attention. As long as the user's attention is on the social platform, the electricity supplier can not be impermeable.

How to deal with the relationship between social networking and electronic commerce naturally requires the exploration of products on the platform by the platform side, as well as the cultivation of users' habits and consciousness. Now, the road ahead is still very far away.