Author: Mote, Simba Tube Trainee
This article introduces Simba's media department and is the fourth in Simba's different series.
A mission
We held the first FBIF Food and Beverage Innovation Forum in 2014, the project research was in 2013, our sales department will complete Research Global Top 100 and China's Top 100 Food Company potential customer information, at that time found that of all the food and beverage companies in the world, only PepsiCo (chief design officer, fashion company), Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Heineken set up Design (design) department. In the early days, we contacted domestic companies, most of which did not even have a packaging department. And foreign giants have let the design walk in front of the packaging.
When it comes to the food and beverage industry, most people probably still regard it as a traditional industry. From day one, we've been driving innovation in the food industry and have asked us: Why can't the food and beverage industry be a fashion industry?
In recent years, we have witnessed the surging innovation of the food and beverage industry, especially the domestic market, and gradually dominated in many segments and even domestic products. Looking around now, emerging foods are full of freshness and fashion! In this process, FBI media also plays a role in disseminating innovative cases, promoting innovative ideas, inspiring more people to participate in the food industry, and bringing deliciousness, health, happiness, creativity, love and beauty to more consumers. Although the contribution of the media in this process cannot be quantified, it is gratifying that we have received recognition and encouragement from many customers, even including food students, to send us recognition and thanks, FBIF has changed TA's understanding of the industry, making TA more confident to devote himself to the food industry!
All of this makes us feel that even a small change in thinking brought by the media to the industry is enough to make this thing meaningful and even great.
Two from 0 to 1
In 2020, on November 24, our fans exceeded 240,000. The official operation of the FBI official account began at the end of January 2017 (during the Spring Festival). In the past 3 years of growth, 240,000 fans is not much, but for our original team specializing in exhibitions, it is a small achievement, and the FBIF has now grown into one of the most influential public accounts in the food and beverage industry, and has been recognized by many customers. FBI media has also brought great changes to ourselves, opened up our horizons, and changed the company from the traditional conference marketing model to the WeChat marketing as the main model, helping the company's business to achieve substantial growth.
Over the years, we have also accumulated a certain amount of media experience and talent team, which is ready for our subsequent growth into Chinese and even the most leading food media in the world. We just went from 0 to 1 and the next step is from 1 to 10.
(i) The conception of the media
In 2014, we participated in a number of industry conferences held by the media and were deeply moved. Events hosted by influential media tend to be grand in scale, have a strong guest lineup, and have a very short cycle of media operations, requiring only 1-2 months (or even shorter) promotion to gather enough people, which is the dream effect of an ordinary conference company. At the end of 2014, we also gradually discovered that our meeting competitors tended not to be in the conference industry, but in the media industry. We feel that this should be a trend that the media will host more conferences and will be a dimensionality reduction blow to the conference industry. Many of the world's leading large-scale exhibition companies are also media starters. These all stimulate us: the need to have your own media!
At the same time, we also find our own great strengths: the biggest advantage of media is the influence of content. The biggest advantage of conference enterprises lies in the ability of the top management of the enterprise to develop and the ability to collect information (the media is often oriented to the masses, and the database of the conference enterprise is accurate DM). Moreover, we have always held international conferences and have global guest resources, which is an advantage that domestic industry media generally do not have. If the advantages of the media are combined with the advantages of the conference enterprise, it will produce amazing results.
At the beginning of 2015, we decided to do the media, and the FBIF's public account was also established at that time, but our initial operational thinking was completely wrong, a series of wrong thinking, and it was not corrected until the beginning of 2017.
1. Build a website + high cost investment
When I envisioned the media in 2015, I first thought about setting up a website, which meant that there needed to be investment in development, and there were at least 4 or 5 editors, and roughly calculated, the annual budget was 50-1 million. In 2014, the company's annual performance was only more than 4 million, in 2015, 4 projects were merged into one, and the second food forum was only 2.74 million, at that time it was really poor and unable to invest!
2. Opened the public account, and the operation has no clue
We opened the FBIF public account as early as 2015, which is not particularly late. But the early operation, is responsible for media cooperation colleagues part-time to do, the company did not pay attention to the strategy, the published article selection is more casual, there is no clear positioning, the article read almost did not exceed 2 digits, until January 21, 2017, our fans are 1665. Didn't expect us to do this for over 2 years [embarrassing].
In short, the path of the media is basically in the concept, there is no real practice, we do not have the right entry point.
(ii) Set sail and grow
In 2016, we experienced a crisis of email marketing failures, which once again stimulated us to explore transformation. It wasn't until the end of January 2017 (January 22, 2017) that we found the right direction and completely transformed into WeChat: operating a public account + community. It's only then that companies have really invested in media in their strategy. And, with a whole new mindset, the media is running. At that time, I was still the main overseas sales force of the FBIF Forum, plus Wilbur full-time, a total of 1.5 people operating, changing the previous "re-investment concept", the core strategy is clear positioning + low cost + efficient operation.
1. Positioning: Innovation & Depth
Just like the direction of our original forum, an industry public account can choose a lot of topics. Without clear positioning, everything is sent and customers are captured, which also means that they cannot attract their core audience. We decided that since the FBIF Forum chose innovation and focused on the three directions of product, packaging and marketing, it has proved the success of this positioning and focus. Then the public account should also be positioned for innovation, while focusing on products, packaging, and marketing. Consistent positioning allows the two products to work together. The content of the media, which is purely innovative, may be superficial, so we have increased the depth of positioning. This positioning also allows us to have a significant distinction among many industry numbers. At the same time, positioning also tells us "what we don't have to do", reducing the cost of our choice to communicate internally.
2. Low-cost investment
It can be said that the idea of doing anything by "throwing money" (a budget of 500,000 is burning money for small companies) is very wrong. Because, to change your mind, almost zero cost, you can also get things done.
So:
(1) Do not build a website, operate a public account (0 cost);
(2) The cost of editing labor is high, and the initial reproduction is mainly based (0 cost).
The service goal of our official account is to provide customers with quality content, so whether it is original is not the core issue. In the beginning, we were not good at editing content, and the process of reprinting was also a good process of learning originality. Start first, and gradually increase the proportion of originality in the process of growth.
3. Efficient operation
(1) Chase hot spots
After doing the media, I knew the concept of chasing hot spots. From 2015 to the beginning of 2017, we did not have any ideas in the operation of the public account, completely based on our own subjective choice, it seems to be for the sake of publishing articles and articles. There is no sense of hotspot at all. The importance of chasing hot spots is equivalent to 30 minutes of effort, and the reading effect is equivalent to 1 week or even 1 month.
(2) Operation community + full operation
We guide customers to add WeChat groups in the public account, through this method to drain the addition of sales of WeChat, increase the accumulation of sales customers, at the same time, require all employees to participate in the sharing of public account articles, which also increases the exposure of our articles to customers, but also improve the stickiness of customers and our staff. Before that, our article was published in the public account, no one shared, no one shared, no one shared!
We also planned various swarm fissions and also greatly increased our fans.
4. Rapid growth
In short, through the above series of methods, let our public account start rapidly in the first year, at the beginning of 2018, our reading volume was stable more than direct competitors, and in 2020, the average reading volume of our headlines has been relatively stable to become the first public account in the B-end food and beverage category.
In recent years, the average open rate of WeChat has been declining, but we have broken the decline through relatively rapid growth, and the average number of FBIF reads is still rising steadily every month.
(iii) Status: Innovative launch platform
FBIF's operation, coupled with the influence of the forum, our innovative positioning and influence continue to be recognized by customers, FBIF has become a platform for more and more brands and startups to launch new products, which is also further enhancing and strengthening the influence of FBIF. Many of our original articles continue to inspire the food and beverage industry! We are also gradually bringing into practice the resource advantages of conference companies and the convergence of media, and the FBIF can interview guests from all over the world.
Some of the more influential articles are listed (the titles are simplified):
- Innocent juice has entered China! （43963）
- Jane loves yogurt, what is this dairy "houlang" doing right? （24940）
- Starbucks is selling plant-based meat in China! （30051）
- With annual sales of 10 billion, why is snail powder so "on the head"? （11189）
- Nongfu Spring launches carbonated coffee (52704)
- Why did Yili's "horn bottle" burst the circle of friends? （36080）
- Cat caps make Suntory's attention soar 500 times? Play big ideas with caps! （31581）
- 50 million exposures in 3 hours, food and beverage labels can still play this way (24226)
- Why isn't there a boss in the cider market? （14906）
- The Next Decade of China's Dairy Industry (17872)
Three Simba media are not the same
(i) Our positioning
1. FBIF Food and Beverage Innovation Public Account
FBI's media positioning innovation and depth. In addition to clarifying what our direction is, it is also important to clarify what not to do. Just as our forums choose to focus on innovation, we will inevitably need to abandon non-innovative areas. FBIF public account, in addition to reporting innovative news, we must abandon consumer-oriented food safety news, corporate regular dynamic news (such as personnel changes, cooperation, conferences, exhibition events), legal disputes, endorsement cooperation, regulations and other related news. Unless these news are linked to innovation, we all have to give up.
At the same time, our customer base is mainly packaged food, as well as covering a small number of chain restaurants, so our food range also needs to exclude ordinary food news, as well as most fresh related news. Unless these news are directly related to or helpful to the packaged food and beverage industry.
In addition, we are clearly a To B media, which also means that all content that is directly to consumers does not meet our positioning (although a small amount of content is also in line with consumer reading).
Clear positioning is an important factor for us to stand out in the same type of public account, and it is also an important guide for the premise and decision-making of our series of media originality and operation. For example, when we decided to do a weekly report on the FBIF public account, I had a variety of options, emulating my peers and integrating all the hot news of the week, but everyone did it, and it was homogeneous. Therefore, our entry is "Innovation Weekly", because the positioning is clear, the weekly newspaper category, and our reading volume has always maintained the first. At present, the image of FBIF innovation is more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, of course, we still need to continue to strengthen.
2. FoodTalks food information website
Now we are also operating foodTalks global food information website (www.foodtalks.cn), foodTalks website positioning will be different from the FBIF, the coverage will be wider, each of our columns have different positioning, subdivided categories, basically still based on innovation as the main purpose, but foodTalks website will involve daily newspapers, corporate dynamics, the future will also pay attention to academic, food safety and other news.
(ii) Our values
The following (partially listed) are the values of the FBI Media Department, the importance of values has been mentioned in the entrepreneurship review article, in the media, values also help us make decisions, choose what to do, what not to do, and how to do it.
1. Promote innovation
2. Promote the development of the industry
3. Remain neutral and objective
4. Do not criticize negative news, do not blindly criticize, but make constructive proposals
When food safety incidents occur in the food and beverage industry, or other negative news, we as a media positioning innovation and depth, our positioning and values determine that we will not participate in negative news reports, incite public sentiment, even if it is a hot spot, may bring us huge traffic. But our positioning and values determine that our responsibility and mission is to promote the development and innovation of the food industry, so our goal is to make the food and beverage industry develop better. Since the criticism has been done by the mass media, our role as the industry media must be different, we should stand in the position of the industry, focus on how to solve, how to do better, we must be constructive proposers.
Our attitude is that as an industry media, the purpose of the FBIF is not to uphold justice, but to promote the progress of the industry under the premise of protecting the interests of consumers, so we should help industry practitioners to standardize from a more scientific and rational perspective. The development of each industry is from non-standard to standardized, just like China's dairy industry, it is also out of the shadow of the Sanlu incident, and now the quality of China's dairy products has reached the global advanced level.
5. Respect copyright
- Any citations of data, information, text, pictures, opinions should be attributed to the source.
- Reprinting should follow the general approach of authoritative media.
- Articles reprinted with other subscription accounts should be noted at the beginning of the article: subscription account name, subscription account ID, author name, etc.
We who do the media are often very nervous that our own team may accidentally make the mistake of infringement, but sometimes it is "out of control", for example, reprinting articles of other numbers, but reprinting sources may be infringing! The other is the training of new people, if the induction is not in place, and the follow-up is not thorough enough, it is also prone to problems. (Written here, it is expected that every media partner, including those who will join soon, will be valued, and values need to be carefully guarded by everyone with actions.) At the same time, customers are welcome to supervise with their peers. ）
6. Wait
(iii) The existing work of the Department of Media
1. Original
Mining innovation: excavating innovative cases, innovative enterprises, and innovative entrepreneurs in the market;
Output point of view: through research, learning, form their own understanding, methodology, and output point of view;
Global Interviews: Interviews with global executives and experts.
In the future, we will continue to add investment in originality, including increasing the investment in website originality, and lead global food innovation by continuously reporting and exporting innovative views and methodologies!
2. Operation
In the past, our operations were clearly separated from the work of the editors, and this year we have carried out the work of the basic operations in shifts by the editorial team. Internal rotation increases the editor's more systematic grasp of industry information and also allows the operation to have a deeper understanding of the content.
In the future, we will continue to refine the division of labor to let professional people do professional things, but we will not stop internal rotation and improve the comprehensive ability of members. Our slogan is: Operations that don't sell are not good editors.
3. Cross-border participation in planning
Simba was originally a media business to increase the competitiveness of the conference, and now that the media has gradually grown, the media team can participate in the planning of the event. For the media, writing topics and inviting guests often has more advantages than planning. Through planning activities, innovative ideas in the creative process can be landed in the form of activities to help more customers. In the future, Simba's media department and planning department will gradually integrate: now that the planning has participated in the content construction, the media will gradually participate in the event planning, and in the future, we hope to promote the eventual integration of media and planning into one department.
4. FoodTalks column construction: unlimited potential
At the beginning of 2020, we launched the food information website to build a food industry information platform based on information. At present, the media department partners are also participating in the construction of various sub-sections. The FBIF public account is positioned as an innovation in the food and beverage industry, which also means that all subdivisions of food and beverage will pay attention to, which is relatively "large and complete". The column of the website can pay more attention to the subdivision area and complement the official account.
At present, the columns we are operating include: food packaging (packaging), design (design), Vfood (venture capital), Mark Rabbit (marketing), materials (ingredients), wine zero, etc. In the future, more columns will be gradually operated, involving more categories. If we look closely at the sub-categories such as wine and condiments, each category is a huge market, and each category is "worth doing again", which is also the value and opportunity of our new media.
FoodTalks Global Food News
IV. Vision and Goals of the Media Sector
(i) The most leading food Chinese media
Grew to 240,000 followers, albeit delightful. But relative to our goal, it's just going from 0 to 1. We know that if you talk to an ordinary person about the food and beverage industry media, no one may be able to think of any well-known media or platform, but when it comes to the medical industry, many people know Lilac Garden. This is the gap between the food and beverage industry media and other industries, and to become the most leading food Chinese media, it also means that the FBIF still has a long way to go. We envision that if we want to achieve the most leading food Chinese media, we should reach at least 1 million followers, and anyone who mentions food innovation will think of the FBIF first; any company that releases innovative products will first choose the FBIF... We hope we achieve this in the next 3-5 years.
(ii) The world's most leading food media
In the food and beverage industry, there is actually no media that has absolute leadership not only in the field of Chinese, but also in the global media. It may be related to the characteristics of the industry, or it may be related to the fact that the industry has not yet attracted enough talents. We look forward to achieving the goal of the world's most leading food media in the next 5-10 years. Only by achieving absolute global leadership can we qualify to say that our media can influence the global food and beverage industry.
V. Expectations of media partners
- a sense of innovation;
- Keen sensitivity to hot spots and ability to act quickly;
- In-depth market insight capabilities;
- Excellent writing and interview skills;
- Excellent English listening, speaking, reading and writing skills (strong ability in other dimensions, English requirements can be reduced);
- Resource integration capabilities (the FBIF's resources are strong and there is currently a serious lack of development).
We need partners with strong comprehensive capabilities, who can do interviews and plan activities, and can do research and operation! It is also very necessary to become a master partner in a certain dimension.
Six Numerous benefits engaged in food media
The joy of the media is something you can't imagine.
(i) Feedback from media partners
"Especially when it comes to starting, it will be very rewarding"
"It should be when people say we're professional"
"[Our article] gets a lot of attention from startup brands"
"After posting an article, someone found a company to contact and write, often investment docking, feel help and very happy"
"Evaluated by customers with integrity and professionalism"
"Let more people pay attention to new trends, new brands, and promote the progress of the industry together"
"There are also times when you are confessed by fans"
(ii) High income
The average salary of Simba's editing partners should be 1.5 times that of a regular editor.
Simba has a well-established editor's active hierarchy, each editor can work more, most editors far exceed their performance goals every month, and can receive additional bonuses.
(iii) Foodie Paradise
Simba is a foodie's paradise, customers often say to pack us yogurt free, screw powder free... (Haha)!
Have the opportunity to taste many innovative products first! 3 pounds of weight to gain in Simba every year! (Can be swiped up and down to view)
Seven Simba different series
I'm Mote, currently Co-CEO and Chief Talent Officer at Simba, and my HR mission is to build a company that continues to create great products and continues to produce great talent, "If the company is a product, HR is the product manager."
Recently I was writing a series of articles about various positions at Simba, and the media is the fourth. Management trainees, administration, marketing have been released, and the follow-up will continue to be released: different series of personnel, planning, conference affairs, design, sales and other positions! Every profession needs to be in awe, at Simba, there is no job that cannot be innovated, Simba is not the same!
*Author: Mote, founder of Simba Events. This article was first published in Mote Mott (ID: motesimba), the original title: Simba is not the same: FBIF media is not the same.