Can Toutiao become a new battlefield for private domain traffic?

On December 23, WeChat for Business 3.0 was officially launched. The most eye-catching features are the three “tools” for creating private domain traffic: “Customer Contact”, “Customer Group” and “Customer Circle of Friends”.

In fact, as people pay more and more attention to "private domain traffic", not only WeChat for Business, but various platforms are building their own private domain traffic tools. For example, the "fan group" function of Weibo and Taobao are all means for companies to establish private domain traffic.

However, there is a platform that has been "ignored" by companies and businesses - Toutiao . You should know that Toutiao’s current user base has reached 700 million, and DUA has reached 200 million, and there is abundant public domain traffic on the platform. This means that it is definitely a "good place" to gain traffic.

In fact, Toutiao has already provided many tools for building private domain traffic to help creators retain users. Not long ago, Toutiao also fully opened the "Toutiao Circle" function to help creators retain users.

So, why not follow the editor to see what private domain traffic tools are available in Toutiao? How can creators use it?

01

Can Toutiao, which “walks on multiple legs”, move faster?

Within the Toutiao platform, there are various content formats: pictures and texts, short pictures and texts (Weitaotiao), Q&A (Wukong Q&A), short videos (Xigua Video), live broadcasts, etc. Among them, Wukong Q&A and Xigua Video have become independent products, but the content in these two products will also be displayed on the Toutiao platform. Even the fans attracted on these two platforms will become fans of the creator on Toutiao and can see other content of the creator.

Taking the most typical products of Toutiao as examples: Weitou, Wukong Q&A, Xigua Video + Live Broadcast, let’s take a look at how to play with different content formats.

1. Weitou: Super high “cost performance”

The format of Weitao is similar to Weibo, mainly featuring short pictures and texts. You can join the topic discussion when posting. The requirements for content are not high, the operation is simple and easy to use, and it is especially suitable for publishing short news content. Weitao also has a certain effect in converting fans.

Many headline authors told Yinghoo-tech: "Sometimes the fan effect brought by taking advantage of the popularity of WeToutiao is better than the effect of writing articles for a week."

Not only does the conversion effect improve, but the creative format of Weitou is also easier to operate. Normally, it takes creators no more than 20 minutes to create a micro headline, and the content is usually mainly hot topics. This method is more in line with the attributes of Toutiao news media platform, but the fan conversion it brings is much higher than articles. It can be said to be a tool with extremely high "cost-effectiveness"!

2. Wukong Q&A: Toutiao is good at recommendation, but it “failed” in recommendation

Wukong Q&A is a question-and-answer product under Toutiao. Its positioning is similar to Zhihu, and it aims to create a high-quality knowledge question-and-answer community.

Specifically, Wukong Q&A is divided into different fields, and creators can answer relevant questions according to their areas of expertise. For creators, users who ask questions are very accurate potential fans, and fans gained through high-quality answers will have much higher stickiness than fans converted through other content forms such as pictures, texts, and micro headlines.

Moreover, Wukong Q&A has always occupied an important position in the entire content section of Toutiao. The platform will provide certain traffic support and cash rewards to stimulate creators to create content. If the answer is good enough, it may be recommended by the platform to the homepage of Toutiao.

Of course, for creators, finding high-quality questions is also the first step to gaining fans.

At present, Wuguoqia still adopts the recommendation mechanism, that is, it recommends questions to the creator based on his or her areas of expertise. A creator who has been working on Wukong Q&A, Xiang Xiao Program Observation (yinghoo-tech), said: "We mainly answer questions recommended by the platform."

However, this recommendation mechanism has a big bug that people complain about: the question recommendations are extremely inaccurate. Many creators and Yinghoo-tech complained that although it is an account in the field of science and technology, it always pushes questions like "Is it really impossible to take a bath during confinement?"

3. Short video + live broadcast: the functions are very basic and the gameplay is very simple

Short videos + live broadcasts are a form of content that all platforms today are unwilling to give up. In Toutiao, it also brings more possibilities to creators.

On the one hand, for many creators who are not good at text and pictures, live streaming is easier for them to operate. After the live streaming, they can generate a short video through simple editing, which gives these creators a new direction. On the other hand, creators used to be able to interact with fans only through article comments, but with the interactive form of live streaming, it is naturally a highly efficient private traffic pool.

Compared with content media such as articles and short videos, the biggest feature of live streaming is that there is no limit on the length of time, and it can communicate with users in real time, so the influence on fans and the ability to bring goods are stronger.

In terms of building private domain traffic, the combination of short videos + live broadcasts is even richer. In addition to comments and barrages, there are also interactive methods such as sending gifts and red envelopes. Real-time "dialogue" with users also makes users more sticky. This is also a major advantage of live streaming: it can establish a personal image.

However, according to the evaluation of yinghoo-tech, the current Toutiao platform seems to be "live streaming for the sake of live streaming", which only provides content formats for creators without deeper operational gameplay. There isn’t even the most basic “after following successfully” guide page. Remember, this is the best time to convert fans.

For example, in the Kuaishou live broadcast room, after the user "follows" the anchor, a "Click to become a true fan" button will appear. After clicking, the anchor's fan club entrance will pop up at the bottom of the screen, thereby guiding fans to join the fan club, making it easier for the anchor to retain users.

In comparison, Toutiao’s live broadcast can be said to be very “rough”.

Not long ago, Zhu Wenjia, the new CEO of Toutiao, publicly stated that he wanted to build Toutiao into the first "universal information platform" in China. For the B-side, multiple content formats can indeed "walk on multiple legs" to attract traffic from the entire platform. Both the platform and the creators can attract more users and fans. However, for users, multiple content formats are like kneading dough together, which will blur the original positioning. While attracting some users, it will inevitably be accompanied by loss.

02

This "circle" is not that "circle"

In early December this year, Toutiao fully opened the Toutiao Circle function, but this is actually a function that was internally tested as early as March this year. Seeing the word "circle", everyone may be confused. Is it "copied" from WeChat Circle?

In fact, there are certain differences between Toutiao circles and WeChat circles. The format of Toutiao circles is more like that of "Knowledge Planet", which is divided into free and paid circles. The free circles mainly help high-quality creators to establish private domain traffic and create an active traffic matrix, while the paid circles can provide creators with an additional monetization channel while accumulating highly sticky fans.

It follows the content integration model within Toutiao. After users join a free circle, the content posted by circle members on Weitou will be synchronized to their own circle, increasing the chance of exposure and motivating circle members to join the circle and post content. At the same time, Toutiao Circle has also established its own activity points system to encourage circle owners to update.

However, according to feedback from creators who have participated in the internal beta test, the circle’s ideals are very hopeless, but the reality is very bleak.

"The operation of a circle requires a very large fan base. Even if a person has about 100,000 fans on Toutiao, only a few dozen of them will be converted into the circle, and it is still not very active." In other words, the current circle function cannot help creators attract incremental fans, but can only consolidate and further monetize existing fans.

In establishing a complete link for private domain traffic, converting users into fans is only the first step; what is more important is to convert and monetize the fans after accumulating them.

In response to this, Toutiao has also launched its own private domain traffic conversion "weapon": Toutiao Store. After creators open a Toutiao store, they can display their stores on multiple platforms such as Toutiao, Douyin, and Volcano, and their products can be displayed and exposed through various means such as Wei Toutiao, videos, and articles.

However, if a content platform wants to “sell goods”, it is not enough to just have high-quality content. For example, Zhihu has always been a high-quality content platform, but it has never been able to embark on the "e-commerce road", which is enough to show how difficult this matter is. In addition to content, creators also need to cooperate with operational methods to stimulate user purchases, which also requires a lot of time and energy. Whether Toutiao Store is a powerful tool for creators still needs the test of time.

In addition, Toutiao’s recommendation mechanism is also a bug for creators to build private domain traffic. The machine learning algorithm "labels" each user and creator, and the algorithm decides what content to recommend to the user.

For users, the efficiency of obtaining content of interest has become higher; for content producers, content can reach more audiences accurately. But this will bring about a "side effect", which is that the connection between creators and users becomes weaker. Users only belong to the platform, and it is not easy for creators to turn users into their loyal fans.

Because of this, it is very difficult for creators to build their own private traffic pool within Toutiao. One creator told us that an article with 500,000 readers can only bring in more than 100 fan conversions.

Overall, although Toutiao provides many tools to help creators build private domain traffic, it has many shortcomings due to its algorithm's "recommendation mechanism" and tools. Toutiao wants to establish a complete creator ecosystem and attract large companies to join, but the road ahead will still be difficult.

Author: Xiao Program Observation

Source: Public Account: Xiao Program Observation