E-Ladies: Navigating the Wired World
Chapter 200: Episode 200: Starting Over and Reopening

Chapter 200: Episode 200: Starting Over and Reopening

Actually, as early as the beginning of 2010, Zhou Xueyin had been planning to take down the small game.

The report was also done by Zhou Xueyin’s friends, but what she didn’t expect was to be fined so much. It was truly a case of injuring the enemy by a thousand and losing eight hundred of her own.

However, it wasn’t too bad since Liu Ruidong paid the lion’s share, so the loss wasn’t too great.

In the second half of the year, thanks to some unorthodox methods, she made some income. In general, Zhou Xueyin did not lose too much in 2010.

And she used this time to study the operating methods of microblogs.

She even experimentally diverted active users from the 51buy forum to the official microblog.

She discovered that video and beautiful image content was much more conducive to spreading than purely textual content.

There were no specific types of microblogs that would reach a peak in instantaneous forwards, but would be weak in follow-up.

However, those specific types of microblogs, although not so much at the start, would skyrocket in forwards over time.

Of course, the number of reposts was proportional to the real number of followers.

Zhou Xueyin often saw content with a huge number of followers but very few reposts. It was obvious that these followers had been bought with money.

If you really want to create a profitable microblog, you definitely can’t buy fake followers...

Although her understanding of microblogs wasn’t particularly comprehensive, she could learn while doing it.

"Comrades, what we sold was just the 51buy brand, but the Xueshan Jiying brand hasn’t been used much..." After they collectively resigned and took some time off, Zhou Xueyin gathered everyone together again.

"You’re not thinking of starting a microblog marketing company like they did, are you?" Li Jiniang looked at her skeptically.

"Hehehe... I won’t lie to you! I’ve been thinking about it since last year! But I didn’t dare to enter rashly because I didn’t understand the industry well enough... But now, look, there are already some well-established accounts... If they weren’t making money, why would they go to all that trouble to create content every day?" Zhou Xueyin shared her research findings.

"Making money is a given! Just his level of follower count sitting there is worth a lot of money!" Kang Siyin had also been studying microblogs, following Yang Ye’s advice.

"You all use microblogs as money-making tools. Am I the only one who naively uses it just as an ordinary social platform..." Yao Shanshan always managed to surprise everyone, and they all admired her innocence and naivety.

"Don’t you ever wonder why everyone is sharing the same content for you to see?" Zhou Xueyin asked her with a smile.

"I didn’t notice. I just thought everyone found it interesting... So there are people controlling it! Now it makes sense!" Yao Shanshan suddenly realized, "I’ve been on the internet for years for nothing! I bet even when something new like ’this bo’ or ’that broadcast’ comes out, I won’t think of people manipulating it..."

"You’re right, most people think like you... I might just be suffering from an occupational disease. I often see the same microblog repost the same content after a while..." Zhou Xueyin hit right on the mark, "They’re really committed to their jobs..."

"If you hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have noticed... Hehehe..." Yao Shanshan looked through her own microblog, and realized she had reposted the same content more than once...

"Alright, alright, no more nonsense. The market is still fresh right now, the traffic is big enough, and the platform is broad enough. The cake is big enough for us to share," Zhou Xueyin was ready to make her concluding remarks. "I did some research, and as for fashion-related microblogs, currently, no company has entered the field... so..."

"So we can take advantage of being the first batch to do fashion, and occupy the microblogging market?" Li Jinang’s eyes shone as she looked at Zhou Xueyin. "Yinyin, I won’t lie, I always have clients asking me why we haven’t entered the microblogging market!"

"Exactly! We won’t just run our own microblog accounts, but we could also operate others for them? Turning advertising fees into package fees? Wouldn’t that be great?" Zhou Xueyin’s mental gears began to turn. "That way, even if we repost our clients’ microblogs to generate traffic, netizens won’t say a word!"

"But Yinyin, all this is talk about later! How do you plan to turn an account from nothing into a big account that everyone wants to repost? Have you thought about this problem?" Kang Siyin watched her, puzzled.

"We could join an account alliance. Each alliance has its own group of accounts, with each group managing accounts in different niches. By collaborating with them, we could grow quickly!" Zhou Xueyin thought utopically.

"Is this how they all started?" Kang Siyin pressed on.

"Pretty much... Mainly because if we just operate one account as a test, it feels like the input doesn’t match the output..." Zhou Xueyin frowned slightly. "We should follow the approach we used to run forums back in the day and establish the account first... But I see their account names are all easy to remember; we should come up with memorable names too!"

So the four of them brainstormed and established four microblog accounts in different directions: for makeup: What Makeup To Wear Today; for fashion coordination: What To Wear Today; for food direction: What To Eat Today; and for entertainment: Where To Go Play Today.

Luckily, they registered early, and the names weren’t taken.

After registering the accounts, it was already late, and everyone went to wash up and sleep.

The next morning, ready to start operating, Zhou Xueyin was surprised to find that the What To Eat Today account had already attracted a dozen followers, even though it hadn’t posted anything yet.

Ah! It seems everyone is quite troubled by this question!

Therefore, Zhou Xueyin dug out some old content from the forum, reorganized it, and posted it to the What To Eat Today microblog. Quickly, it got one or two reposts.

For a brand-new account, this was already miraculous.

Of course, in the beginning, microblogging operations still relied on previously accumulated content; the four of them posted relevant content daily, letting them grow freely...

One month had passed, and What To Eat Today had already amassed over 500 followers, the best growth among all the accounts.

The makeup account and fashion account were neck and neck, with Where To Go Play lagging behind, garnering attention mostly near weekends and going unnoticed otherwise.

That day, it was time for Jiang Chunming’s annual banquet again, and Zhou Xueyin, as always, was going to attend. Many clients actually got to know each other at the banquet.

This year, at the banquet, Jiang Chunming specially introduced an investor, Bai Luoran, to Zhou Xueyin. She was very optimistic about the microblogging media space and had her own account group.

Zhou Xueyin checked on several accounts and, to her surprise, found they all belonged to Bai Luoran’s group. She admired how those who entered the scene first could get the bigger share of the cake.

And her fashion microblog accounts just happened to fill a niche that the other party lacked. Without planning, the two verbally agreed to help each other.