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author: yang jing

on april 28, 2024, 12 senior executives of avita collectively joined weibo.

on may 15, several senior executives from gac's independent and joint venture brands formed a group to open personal new media accounts.

on may 27, byd’s general manager team collectively joined douyin.

......

there is no doubt that from the technology madman musk's involvement in the field of electric vehicles, to china's li bin, li xiang, he xiaopeng and other internet elites followed closely, and then the technology tycoon lei jun announced his entry into the game.this series of cross-border actions by autobots has opened a new chapter for individuals to exert influence on the internet and social platforms in the form of ip.

by sharing personal insights and showcasing product highlights, they have effectively enhanced the market awareness and influence of the automotive brands they founded or participated in.

in the past two years, this trend has become increasingly obvious, whether it is the emerging car-making forces or the traditional new energy car companies; whether it is the independent brands rooted in the local area or the foreign brands from afar; even many senior executives of central enterprises, state-owned enterprises and private enterprises have stepped out from behind the scenes and rushed to the front with unprecedented enthusiasm.

they all "debuted" collectively, competing to become "internet celebrities" in the automotive industry. this phenomenon has even caused self-mockery in the industry: "executives who don't know how to use new media are not qualified."

however, it is worth noting that while traffic in china's auto industry peaks at events such as the beijing auto show in april, the chengdu auto show, just four months later,when it came time to actually sell the cars, the enthusiasm cooled significantly and fell to a low point.

this contrast clearly reveals a cruel reality: although traffic can bring a lot of exposure, it may not be directly converted into sales. what is the value of traffic that cannot promote product sales? this undoubtedly sounded a wake-up call for those companies that blindly pursue traffic.

traffic cannot bring goods

these car people who have crossed over from the internet field, with their experience in the digital age, do have unique insights and methods on how to play with network traffic. they are good at using social media platforms to quickly attract and accumulate a large number of fans, winning valuable exposure opportunities for the car brands they represent.

however, for many practitioners in the traditional automotive industry, the situation is very different.due to their long-term focus on the design and manufacturing of physical products, they are relatively less sensitive to the operating rules of the internet ecosystem, user behavior habits, and internet language.

when faced with companies’ requests to engage in new media, conduct live broadcasts and other emerging marketing methods, many traditional automakers seem unable to cope with the situation, and may even fall into the situation of blindly following the trend due to lack of relevant experience. in this case, if the new media strategy is forcibly promoted, it may not only fail to achieve the expected publicity effect, but may also damage the brand image due to problems such as low content quality and poor interactivity.

many people have commented on traditional car companies’ involvement in the internet: it is a waste of time and money. in the process of pursuing internet traffic and exposure, companies have to invest a lot of human, material and financial resources. this not only includes hiring professional teams to plan and execute new media activities, but may also involve additional training for existing employees to adapt to new marketing methods.

more importantly, this process often sacrifices the valuable time and energy of senior executives that should be used for core business management and strategic planning.for many traditional automotive people, they should have been experts focusing on core businesses such as product research and development, quality control, and market expansion. however, in response to the needs of corporate transformation, they were forced to devote their energy to learning and trying out areas they are not good at - new media operations.

such unprofessional sideline activities may not only distract their focus from their main business, but may also lead to poor marketing results or even negative brand impact due to lack of relevant experience. therefore, for traditional car people, if they blindly follow the trend, they may fall into the embarrassing situation of getting half the result with twice the effort.

here, the activity of these car company executives on new media and the sales of their car companies or brands in the same period would be more convincing if these two data were put forward.

someone has counted the traffic rankings of the big auto companies on weibo in july, and it is obvious that traffic is not proportional to sales. for example, although the personal weibo traffic of executives of brands such as deepblue, xiaopeng, weilai, nezha, and zhiji ranks in the top 15, the monthly sales of these automakers are only at the level of 20,000 vehicles, and some brands even have less than 20,000 vehicles.

if a car brand’s monthly sales volume is less than 20,000 vehicles, it is no longer a question of personal ip influence, but a question of whether the company can survive.sales volume is one of the key indicators to measure a brand’s market performance. it reflects the combined effects of many factors, including the brand’s overall strength, product quality, market strategy, channel layout, and consumer reputation.

at this point, even if brand executives or founders have strong personal ip and can attract a lot of attention on social media, if the product itself lacks competitiveness, or the market positioning is inaccurate, or the after-sales service system is not perfect, then these personal influences will be difficult to convert into actual sales growth.

no advertising costs

at the same time, it can be seen that although the new forces in the automotive industry are good at using internet thinking to manipulate traffic, in the end they still cannot escape the embarrassing fate of being at the bottom of the sales. once upon a time, these new forces often used the slogan of "beating tesla" to attract the attention of a large number of followers.

however, as time went on, the market taught them a lesson with its cruel reality, leaving them bruised and battered.

faced with such a dilemma, should these new car manufacturers calm down and seriously think about why their "bragging" products have not been able to achieve a breakthrough in sales? even after undergoing a generational upgrade, why are they still unable to win the favor of consumers?

perhaps the root of the problem is that they focus too much on traffic and ignore the quality of the product itself and the actual needs of the market. although traffic can bring temporary attention, what really determines the success or failure of a brand is the strength of the product and the market's recognition.

many executives of auto companies have claimed that the purpose of opening new media accounts is to establish more direct and efficient communication channels so as to better face users and understand their needs.however, the reality is shocking. in the field of new energy vehicles, the phenomenon of some car companies backstabbing users is particularly serious.

the replacement cycle of new energy products is getting shorter, and new users quickly become "leeks". these users, who were originally valuable seed users of car companies, have voiced their rights under the media accounts of car company executives. for a time, these accounts were filled with user complaints and dissatisfaction, and the brand image of car companies was greatly reduced.

some big vs have also pointed out in public that the influence of those internet celebrities of car companies, who are regarded as god-level, cannot be underestimated due to their huge fan base, frequent public speeches and wide dissemination. they assert that these internet celebrities have saved billions of advertising costs for their respective companies at least, because their existence itself is a powerful brand promotion.

however, it is still questionable whether advertising costs can be saved. for practitioners in the traditional automotive industry, when they try to get involved in the new media field, they often face huge challenges in the early stages. due to the lack of accumulated internet users, their new media accounts often find it difficult to gain enough attention in the early stages.

in order to create an account that appears active and popular, the teams behind these executives have to take some extraordinary measures, such as purchasing fans, inflating "reposts, comments and likes", etc., to improve the account's data performance.these operations undoubtedly require a large amount of capital investment, making the early new media operations quite expensive.

this kind of "water injection" behavior is also called self-deception. fake account data cannot truly reflect the interests and needs of users, nor can it bring real brand value and market influence to car companies. in the long run, this kind of self-deception will only weaken the credibility of the brand and increase the fatigue of executives.

after the chengdu auto show came to an end, a discussion was widely circulated in the industry: in the current auto market, it is difficult to see "hot-selling" models with monthly sales of 10,000 units. for automakers, how to create hot-selling models that can lead the market trend and win the favor of consumers has become a key issue that needs to be solved urgently, rather than just messing around with traffic.