How does the brand get away from the hot search？

Recently, there are three news items in the hot search, involving Dong Yuhui and Pang Donglai respectively.

The first article is # Dong Yuhui’s Hubei trip was accused of being ostentatious #, and in the video, Dong Yuhui was surrounded by many security guards, with high protection specifications. Netizens questioned the luxury of ostentation and extravagance, which triggered public discussion on the specifications of celebrity activities. Earlier, Dong Yuhui emptied Weibo.

The second one is # Fat Donglai adds 10 unhappy days off #. Yu Donglai, the founder of Fat Donglai, said at the China Supermarket Week Forum in 2024 that this year, Fat Donglai added another 10 unhappy days off, so the management must approve the leave and hope everyone will be free. Pear video made a vote, 63,000 strongly supported it, 2,235 was not very supportive, and 2,140 didn’t matter.

The third article is # Fat Donglai’s response that 985 girls failed to enter the interview #, with a reading volume of 320 million, ranking first in the hot search list and staying on the list for 15.4 hours. The cause of the incident was that a girl who graduated in 1985 said that she was a professional counterpart, graduated in 1985 and had three years of industry experience, but she didn’t enter the interview. The comment area is one-sided with Fat East.

Through these three hot searches, combined with the last article "Nongfu Spring and Ideal, the Choice of Silence or Voice", I talk about the brand path selection of the hot search cycle.

Fat Donglai is at the zenith of public opinion.Even women, the most powerful topic in the whole network, did not shake the public positive tendency from Fat East. This is also the starting point of the upcoming traffic bite. This is the position where Dong Yuhui stayed two years ago.

Dong Yuhui is slowly descending to the ground.From one-sided support to mixed praise, whether consciously or passively. Brands and entrepreneurs who are pushed to the moral high platform by traffic love should learn to find their own steps and come down. Destroy your expectations and image step by step in order to get back to the ground and do things in a down-to-earth manner.

After the MEGA model went on the market, Li Xiang, CEO of LI, issued an internal letter, saying that he should seek truth from facts and correct his mistakes when he knew them. Subsequently, individual Weibo rarely stopped for 26 days. Ideal is climbing from the bottom.

I use the figure below to show this process. Any brand with hot search constitution will go through this cycle.

The heights are too cold, and the cycle is irreversible.

Shen Congwen said that a person’s shortcomings are just like a monkey’s tail. When a monkey squats on the ground, the tail is invisible. Until he climbs up the tree, he puts the back for the public to pay tribute. However, this long tail with red buttocks is already there, which is not a new sign of climbing up. The same is true for brands.

Any brand and entrepreneur, the longer they stand on the stage, the longer they will be examined and looked at by 360 without dead ends. If there is a seam in the sky clothes, flies will come after them. The moment when the shell is broken is the moment when the society dies.

This stage is a flow ecological field and an Colosseum in ancient Rome.

I will write about the concept of traffic ecological field in the forthcoming Practical Handbook of Crisis Public Relations: troublemakers, instigators, boosters, regulators and rabble, which together constitute the traffic ecological field.

Brand boarding hot search depends on:

Online celebrity Traffic Hotspots Realizes Desire A

+emotional intensity expressed by netizens b

+Multiplication and amplification degree of media and MCN mechanism matrix number c

+Algorithm Weighting Degree D of Platform Traffic Pool

+Degree of involvement of regulators e

In this conspiracy, the demands of the five roles are different. Public netizens yearn for fairness and justice, online celebrity pursues the realization of traffic, the media and MCN institutions expect the explosion of content, the media platform is happy to see the controversy, the regulatory agencies pay attention to the rule of law and order, and the brand is self-seeking.

Many hot searches are initiated by self-media and behind-the-scenes MCN organizations that are bloodthirsty, concocting traffic headlines and provoking netizens’ emotions. What they need is the platform advertising share and revenue brought by high traffic, not you. Don’t jump off the field, or you will be the bullfight that is watched by the whole audience, and your blood is blown out by a red cloak, exhausted.

What should I do if I am pushed, surrounded, and carried on the field?

Learn to find your own steps down.Destroy your expectations, image and role step by step in order to return to the ground and do things in a down-to-earth manner.

The model in this respect is Huawei and founder Ren Zhengfei. I added the above picture to Huawei’s performance and got the following picture.

Vertical tide, far ahead.

Summarize three inspirations:

1. Don’t accept the role given by public opinion and flow, but build your own framework.

For example, Dong Yuhui’s "mother-in-law" is the framework and label of traffic ecology. You only have to act according to the label, otherwise it will be betrayal, which will inspire complaints, anger and attacks that "you have changed".

The traffic ecological field will give the brand a story frame that the public likes. For example, this is a "conscience" brand and this is a "conscience" entrepreneur. This "conscience" is the standard for the public to evaluate all your actions.

This conscience is not the conscience of "beginning of life is inherently good", but the conscience of the greatest common denominator of public cognition and emotion. It refers to: layoffs are ugly, profits are ugly, capitalists are black-hearted, and scholars are content with poverty. If they make money, they should donate to the society.

Conscience narration is the framework.

How to build a brand’s own framework can be found in the 7 principles of framework communication in Crisis Public Relations Manual:

Don’t jump into each other’s topics and frameworks, and don’t use each other’s language;

Know each other’s framework, predict each other’s language patterns and follow-up actions;

It is not enough to only have facts and truth, but to establish a framework for the truth from your own perspective;

The facts and stories in the framework must be true and cannot be false and arbitrarily manipulated;

Think about the framework in terms of public order, good customs, values and culture, not the crisis itself;

Active attack, not passive defense;

Respond to events, not frames.

A good framework is to break through the lack of Helan Mountain with thousands of troops. This requires planning and thinking in strategic communication.

2. Don’t covet the favor of traffic, pay attention to products and user experience.

That’s poison with a price tag. It is better to eat the real dividend of productism and customer experience than to eat the flow of patriotism and nationalism.

On May 21, 2019, Ren Zhengfei said in an interview with the media: "Our family is still using Apple mobile phones. Apple’s ecology is very good. I also sent them Apple computers when my family went abroad. We can’t narrowly think that Aihua is just a mobile phone." This reflects his open attitude towards technology and market competition and his rational understanding of patriotism.

You said I was patriotic, and I immediately took over this banner. Began to smuggle goods and sell products. You think you can go downstream, but you can also overturn the boat. Lessons from the past are too numerous to mention.

This is not an impromptu expression of Ren Zhengfei in the interview, but a thoughtful strategic thinking of public relations.

On September 29, 2018, at the report meeting of Huawei’s public relations strategy outline, he specifically mentioned:

The basic principles and boundaries of public relations should be made clear, such as "We can’t get involved in nationalism, class conflicts, religious issues, geopolitics, and taking sides"-Ren Zhengfei | "From the crystallization of human civilization, find the key to solving world problems"

This involves the next point:

3. Don’t deviate from the main line of organizational strategy communication, but make a hole.

The image that the brand wants to create and the road it wants to take is A, and the image and road that the public likes is B. A and b sometimes converge. However, the brand should have firm and clear judgment, and don’t be caught in the torrent of public will.

Brand, even if it is only a clear stream, should firmly scour its own riverbed and estuary. If you find yourself included in the torrent of public will, you must find a new way and fight your way out.

Crisis narrative is a branch story of organizational strategy narrative.

The main story of the organization is the strategic communication of the organization and brand, and the double-track story is the product story, founder story, employer story, financial story and ESG story.

The side story is an affair that has escaped from the wall, an unintentional work that has to be done, and an incident that has been covered up in every way. If the sideline story and offside become the main story of the organization, it is a deviation from the strategic main line, and the consequences are: consuming organizational resources and affecting public cognition.

Crisis stories, which are inseparable from the strategic main line, are strategic planning of crisis communication.

If the sidelights and irrelevant facts are not on the main line of organizational strategic communication, they will be cut off or not responded. This is also what Huawei advocates, that is, "making a hole", concentrating superior resources on the main channel and not consuming resources on non-critical paths.

Of course, some people will ask, can you still do business when the traffic fades? What do you think?

This article comes from WeChat WeChat official account:Xueyou solves the crisis (ID: xueyouchu), author: Chu Xueyou