4 thinking skills for new media operators to write hit products!

I'm in Beijing recently, learning writing from my classmates in the "Mimeng Team". Yes, it is the "Mimeng Team" that was banned because their articles were too popular. How popular were their articles? It means that when you open your Moments, you may see more than ten friends forwarding the same article to them, which is commonly known as screen swiping.

They don’t even need to follow hot topics when writing, because they themselves are the hot topics. Last year, the "Jiang Ge and Liu Xin" case did not receive much social attention in the early stages, but an article by them pushed the case to the top of the Weibo hot search list, making it a major event of concern to the entire nation. So they are really strong in creating content.

In today’s article, I will share what I have seen from them in the past three weeks that made me say “Wow! It’s possible!” It is very inspiring and I hope it will be helpful to you.

1. Become an idiot in a second

I have seen a joke: It only takes 1 second for Steve Jobs to become an idiot, 5 seconds for Ma Huateng, and 10 seconds for Zhang Xiaolong. This is not to scold them. For someone who makes products, becoming an idiot is a good thing. Because it means you can look at your product from the user's perspective, like a newbie (idiot). In this way, you can know what users think and want, avoid being too self-satisfied, and better grasp their needs.

Similarly, when considering articles as "content products", the people in the "Mimeng team" are definitely the type who can "turn into idiots in seconds" - they have a super strong perception of their readers .

(1) For the same thing, they can always find a point that is more painful and more resonant with the public

If you were asked to write an article targeting those born in the 1980s, using "Zhang Xinzhe's Variety Show Makes Those Born in the 1980s Cry", how would you write it?

Maybe we will list a group of idols born in the 80s and make a nostalgic post, saying that those born in the 80s have grown old and have been worn down by life. But this is too common, relatable, but overwritten. The point made by "Mimeng Team" is: What is more tragic than being teased is that no one teases those born in the 1980s anymore, because no one cares at all. Ah, this point is so heartbreaking. The point of view is painful and novel, and it understands people born in the 80s better than those born in the 80s.

(2) They know what the reader already knows and what they don’t know

I have applied for a topic about the recently popular movie "Nezha", and wanted to write about the tragedy of "Nezha": Nezha, who once defied heaven to change his fate, had to suppress Sun Wukong, who also defied heaven to change his fate, for the heaven when he grew up. Nezha, because of his prejudice against Sun Wukong, repeated his own tragedy. Therefore, changing fate is useless, only changing prejudice can work.

The angle seems good, but they immediately pointed out the problem: 1. Will readers assume that Sun Wukong defied fate and changed his destiny? 2. Will readers assume that Nezha beat Sun Wukong out of prejudice? If they don’t, it means we need to educate readers first and make them accept these pre-existing viewpoints before the article can stand. The cost of this education is too high. Not only can it impress readers, but it is also a question whether they can finish reading it .

I…

Mimi Meng and others' ability to perceive readers is really amazing, but also too difficult. Otherwise, there would be many accounts like Mi Meng on the market. But there are accounts like this, but they are all from Mi Meng themselves. This means that they have methods, a large number of methods, systematic methods, including how to create user perception and how to accumulate methodology.

2. Self-anatomy

Let’s first talk about how to practice user perception. My first assignment when I came to Beijing was to go see the movie "Nezha". Of course, it’s not just about watching a movie. While watching the movie, I summarize my emotions as a viewer: when I want to laugh, when I feel nervous, when I feel moved, when I feel angry... This is the difference. We may be touched after watching a movie, but that’s all.

But for the friends in the "Mimeng Team", this is just the beginning. Analyzing these emotional triggers, finding the reasons for being triggered, and learning to create these triggers are what a good content creator should do. They not only analyze large content carriers such as articles and movies, but also delve deeply into the emotions of even a sentence. For example, when Wen Zhang and Ma Yili divorced, Wen Zhang wrote on Weibo:

We just finished watching it, but one of Mi Meng’s friends was actually very moved, and she herself didn’t know what she was moved about. She was moved when others got divorced. It's so special. We need to dig deeper. Then their entire team kept asking this person the reason. In the end, I found out that it was the two words "My love" that touched her - it is really rare for two divorced people to say "My love" to each other after leaving each other.

Because people of our generation no longer believe in staying together for a lifetime, and parting ways amicably is the best ending. So, they were preparing to write an article at that time titled "Wen Zhang and Ma Yili are getting divorced, I envy them." It’s really amazing.

This kind of understanding of users and emotions has become their daily habit; the more they understand, the more accurate their perception of users becomes, and the more they can turn into idiots in a second, which in turn allows them to better find the pain points of the public and express content more fluently. This is not the end. After using emotion to "dissect" their emotions, they begin to use rationality to precipitate methodology. This is really scary.

3. Math teacher who teaches Chinese

When I first listened to the "Mimeng Team" talk about methodology, I was completely dumbfounded. It’s not that I don’t understand, it’s that I’m amazed - “How can they write sentences like this, and how can they summarize methods like this”. For example, how did our Chinese teachers teach us to write sentences in the past? "This sentence is good. Please copy it, read it more and memorize it more." The subtext is that you should feel it yourself and you will get it slowly.

A better teacher will tell you, "This sentence uses the word 'thimble', everyone remember to imitate it." Don't remember what a thimble is? "One begets two, two begets three, and three begets all things" - it uses the "top needle", and the ending of the previous sentence is the same as the beginning of the next sentence.

But the "Mimeng team" did not summarize it this way. They abstracted a mathematical model. For example, the ejector pin is an ABBC model. The advantage of abstracting it into a mathematical model is that once you see ABBC, you can deduce ACBC.

What is ACBC? It rhymes. “When we grow up, we suffer even greater grievances, but we can only remain silent and dare not even cry. We are afraid that the people who hate us will hear it, and we are even more afraid that the people who love us will hear it.” - The second sentence here is ACBC. Doesn’t it sound very advanced?

If we derive ACBC, we can also derive ABBA, ACBA... Isn't this way of deriving a bunch of theorems from one axiom the teaching method of mathematics and physics teachers? From now on, when you complain about someone’s poor writing skills, don’t ever say “your Chinese was taught by a math teacher”... Believe me, if he was really taught Chinese by a math teacher, it would definitely be very good.

The above are the three most shocking things I observed after following them for three weeks. But honestly, these are just techniques, just techniques to make words more powerful. I think the most amazing thing is that they are very sincere. Yes, the Mi Meng team, whose values ​​are often criticized, is very sincere.

4. Ask questions sincerely, think sincerely, and answer sincerely

Many people say that Mimi Meng’s values ​​are not right, and that other accounts in their team are manipulating public emotions in various ways. I would like to say a few words for them.

(1) Are they really that good at manipulating emotions?

real. Not only them, but all excellent content works can manipulate people's emotions . Patriotic movies are meant to excite the audience, so they must mobilize (manipulate) emotions, such as "Wolf Warrior 2"; public service announcements and public service documentaries are meant to resonate strongly with the audience so that we can be led by emotions to act, such as "The Cove," a documentary about the Japanese massacre on the beach.

(2) Are their values, world outlook, and values ​​correct?

I don’t understand the three views and I won’t comment on them. But I know that the people on their team are very sincere - they say what they think. You might think it’s easy to just say what you think, and maybe you are. But for those who create content, many practitioners write about hot topics just for the sake of hot topics, and cater to readers just for the sake of catering to them. Sincerity is very rare in this industry (it is probably rare in many industries as well).

Take me as an example. It’s fine for me to write content for my own official account, but if I want to contribute to other brands, I will deliberately design the content and try to please the readers. For example, I recently wrote an article for a cultural brand about the living conditions of people born in the 1980s. The general procedure is to first find a communication point that pleases the post-80s generation, and then collect materials to make it appear reliable. It's like first convicting a person of guilt and then trying to prove it.

But Mi Meng's friends are not like this. When they also write about the current living conditions of people born in the 1980s, they will ask honestly, "What are people born in the 1980s doing now?" Then they will collect a lot of information, or conduct interviews themselves if there is no information, and then draw conclusions - their opinions are not deliberately intended to please anyone, this is what I understand as "sincerity". Their team highly respects the "Pulitzer" journalistic spirit, and one of the core elements of Pulitzer is "recording the truth."

Of course, recording the truth is also very dangerous. Everyone sees a different "truth", and some "truths" may even hurt some people's vested interests. There are no products, opinions or statements in this world that satisfy everyone. When people like them write something very well and a lot of people can see it, there will definitely be people who are dissatisfied with it, which will lead to the evaluation that it has "distorted values".

Back to "sincerity", why do I think "sincerity" is more important than the previous skills? Because the core of writing is a means of communication. An author shares his or her thoughts with others through writing. For readers, this is no different from listening to the author giving a live speech.

Therefore, the most important thing in communication is definitely not the rhetoric (skills) of expression, but whether the idea itself is worth expressing, worth readers listening to, and worth being spread . To obtain such valuable opinions, one must not just follow the crowd, but treat a problem sincerely, ponder it sincerely, and understand it sincerely - only such answers will have depth, be different from others, be worthy of being listened to, and be worthy of being spread. What you write after spending three days interviewing 100 people is definitely different from what Baidu writes in 30 minutes.

5. Summary

Frankly speaking, I feel depressed when writing this. It's not just the awareness of the ability gap, what's more frustrating is the awareness of the time gap. To put it bluntly, it is a matter of "one minute on stage, ten years of hard work off stage". The gap that I can see with my naked eyes is the result of a lot of deliberate practice and long-term accumulation.

Teacher Liang Ning once classified "ability". The bottom level is called "micro-perception" and the next level is "meso-level methodology". For example, the ability to “become an idiot in a second” belongs to the micro-physical sense, which can clearly perceive readers and users. But it is very time-consuming to develop this ability, and even the methodology is useless to us.

The Japanese sushi god Jiro Ono had an apprentice who fried eggs for 10 years before being recognized by Jiro. You should know that there are only a few steps to frying eggs, but to really do it well, you need to practice a lot and accumulate a lot of micro-physical sensations. There is no shortcut.

In fact, most of Mimi Meng’s friends are very young, so you can imagine how early they started accumulating knowledge. But on second thought, the world is indeed not fair, as some people start very early; but the world is also extremely fair, as the advantages of others are accumulated bit by bit, and there are no shortcuts.

So, instead of dwelling on the past, it is better to accept it. The past cannot be changed, but our future can be changed. The method is also very simple. Just start doing it now. mutual encouragement.

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Author: Hu Chenyu

Source: I don't like to talk about reason