Soul User Operation System

Nowadays, stranger social networking is favored by more and more young people with communication needs due to its anonymity and companionship characteristics. Among them, Soul, which entered the market earlier, is the most representative.

1. Soul Business Logic

1. Market background

The rise of stranger social networking is strongly correlated with the social characteristics of the Generation Z online group. Generation Z refers to the group born between 1995 and 2010. Their growth environment was greatly influenced by the Internet and they can be said to be the main force of social platforms. According to data from Mob Research Institute, among Generation Z users, 56.4% prefer social networking with strangers rather than traditional social circles of acquaintances.

The underlying logic of the two products, Tantan and Momo, the pioneers of stranger social networking, is the same - putting appearance first. Virtual interactions between strangers are characterized by companionship and anonymity. For users of Generation Z, the demand for stranger social interaction is no longer limited to making friends with the opposite sex, and appearance is no longer the only consideration in making friends. The demand is more diversified and more focused on spiritual communication .

Soul was founded in 2016. It goes against the grain in the field of stranger social networking. Users do not need to upload real photos when registering. Profile matching promotes exchanges of interests and hobbies, and allows users to get to know strangers through square dynamics, allowing interesting souls to meet. This greatly satisfies the needs of contemporary young people to expand their social distance radius, reach more people, and use the interactive tools provided by the platform for in-depth communication.

2. Soul Background

Soul’s product design is based on interest graphs and gamification, and it is committed to creating a “social metaverse for young people” with the vision of “making no one lonely in the world”. It is a virtual social network for the new generation of young people.

The relationship accumulation and retention of stranger users in the real world on the platform are used as positive samples, and based on the users' social portraits and interest graphs, machine learning is used to recommend high-quality new relationships that users may have.

Every individual who comes to Soul can be quickly recommended to the people and content closest to him or her in the high-dimensional space, start communication at low cost, and obtain high-quality relationships.

3. User analysis

(1) User Profile

Judging from the gender ratio of users, there are more male users than female users, and the age of users is concentrated between 22 and 35 years old, which tends to be younger. It can be inferred that most of the users are students, those just entering the workplace, and those of marriageable age who are unmarried, and have an urgent need to make friends.

From a regional perspective: users in my country's eastern region, coastal areas, and economically developed first-tier and new first-tier cities account for a high proportion, and their spending power is basically medium or above average.

(2) User usage scenarios

The needs for strangers making friends are mainly to satisfy the desire to talk, the need to make friends, and the need to interact with friends. Combined with the user portrait, it can be inferred that the user usage scenario may be: young people working hard in big cities feel lonely in their busy lives, have no common topics with their old friends, and have no time to make new friends. They can't find anyone to talk to, and have a strong desire to talk and make friends (pain points). Soul can quickly match users with the same interests and hobbies, and can start high-quality communication at a low cost (solution)

(3) Existing risks

Adverse effects of anonymity: Anonymous social networking has certain risks, such as fraud and bad guidance. The solutions mainly include good user guidance and strengthening platform supervision;

Competition with social platforms for acquaintances: Soul is very suitable for establishing and cultivating shallow relationships. Once users establish deeper relationships, they tend to move away from stranger social platforms and turn to acquaintance social platforms (WeChat). Security is the main consideration for users to turn to acquaintance social platforms, and WeChat often becomes the destination for stranger social platforms.

4. Business Logic

Business logic summary:

Based on interest mapping and gamification, we meet users' needs for social companionship, anonymity, and diversification, create a new type of virtual social network, and further enhance user stickiness and value through membership rights, social currency, and other means .

2. Operational Objectives

Judging from the average number of monthly usage days per person, the average number of daily startups per person, and the average daily usage time per person, it can be seen that users have the characteristics of high login frequency and short online time . Generally speaking, users use their usual fragmented time to interact.

The profit sources are mainly in two aspects: advertising and value-added services .

Advertising: Similar to other Internet business models that rely on absorbing traffic growth, in the stage where growth is the main focus, it uses the user growth dividend to develop advertising business to increase its own revenue.

In terms of value-added services: membership system, social e-commerce and other channels have been developed.

Social e-commerce (Soul Coin): can be used to buy gifts and give them to each other, and can be used on demand in paid scenarios; can be used to buy virtual items in group chat parties and games for rewards, etc.;

Membership: Enjoy additional privileges, such as viewing visitors, information cloud roaming, setting special care, etc.

Operational objectives: Promote user activity, increase user willingness to pay, and improve conversion rate .

Judging from the data feedback, there is a lot of room for improvement in the current proportion of active users and the penetration rate of active users.

3. Soul User Operation Strategy

1. AARRR model analysis

(1) Acquisition

Traffic purchase: High-frequency advertising on major traffic platforms such as Zhihu, Weibo, Douban, and WeChat public accounts, using slogans such as "finding you through the soul" and "social metaverse for young people" to attract users and increase exposure and downloads;

Content marketing: Create unique social content attributes for Soul, use hot search on Weibo topics, accumulate relevant readings to hundreds of millions of times, and trigger widespread attention and discussion;

Event marketing: By co-organizing related events with apps in other fields, we can promote positive energy, increase exposure, increase participation, and reach users in all aspects;

(2) Activation

When new users register, they mainly pass a " soul test " in the subjective dimension, which includes basic portraits, personality, interests, world outlook, and other dimensions, so that users can be assigned to the planet with the highest degree of fit .

The homepage of the app has a large number of interactive functions that allow users to quickly find content of interest: soul matching, love bells, voice matching, group chat parties, cute video matching, interest groups, soul werewolves, etc., covering all user groups from the perspective of dating preferences, crowd classification, and interest social interaction , allowing registered users to quickly understand the content of the platform at the first time, attracting users to experience the various functions of the product.

(3) Retention

Interest social

Individuals: Use big data to interpret user information and reach out through soul matching, love bells, voice matching, and cute face video matching functions.

Groups: Users can choose to join interest groups and group chat parties. Group chat parties are relatively active.

Retention mechanism of group chat party:

Exit mechanism: Enter the party, click "Exit Party" in the more options in the upper right corner, and a prompt will pop up "Are you sure you want to exit the party? No more chatting?" Select "Confirm to exit" from the two options to exit.

By setting "anti-normal" user operation habits, the user's exit and switching behaviors are interfered with, thereby increasing the user's online time.

a. Clicking the normal back button does not exit the group chat, but only minimizes the group chat into a floating window on the APP page;

b. Right-click "Exit Party" and a prompt will pop up "Are you sure you want to exit the party? Stop chatting?". If there is color interference between the two options, select "Confirm to exit";

c. When entering a group chat party, a 14s countdown will appear in the lower left corner of the page. Users can switch parties only after the countdown ends. The user switching behavior is intervened to delay the user experience time.

Social Gaming

You can participate in the games "Bomb Cat", "Soul Werewolf", "Pet Planet" and "Night in the Dreamland (Internal Test)" through the Soul Paradise on the homepage.

a. "Explosive Cat": imitates the underlying logic of chess and card games;

b. "Soul Werewolf": a classic social game;

c. "Pet Planet": pet training; (QQ Pet)

(4) Revenue

Members: Super Stars, Member Rights Strategy Orientation: High Activity, More Sharing, More Interaction

Function privileges: special care, chat message cloud roaming, soulmate acceleration, 5 minutes audio and video

Exclusive discounts: Soul City Card, Soul Positioning Card, Voice Positioning Card, Soul Fairy Card, Voice Fairy Card, Love Bell Acceleration Card, Voice Renewal Card

This section is mainly for social needs. The dialog box on Soul has a Soulmate design. As the chats between the two parties accumulate, the letters can light up in turn (similar to the sparks and other markers in the QQ chat box). When ordinary users are chatting in the dialog box, the system will constantly prompt them to upgrade and light up faster (membership recharge).

The purpose of Soulmate itself is to create the desire and sense of meaning for chatting and to build a user payment scenario. You can imagine that the user's desire to find someone to chat with is upgraded to finding a soul mate, which directly raises the level to the maximum.

I personally think that the conversion rate of this setting is good. During the experience, I impulsively clicked several times to speed up the lighting.

Identity privileges: exclusive nickname/background image, identity badge, exclusive guardian/gift, exclusive face-pinching props, message bubble

In order to create exclusive labels for users, enhance user uniqueness, and meet unique psychological needs, the Soul platform cannot use real head shapes (3D cartoon avatars on the entire platform). During the interaction process, the first thing users pay attention to is the nickname avatar, and the user's personalized customization needs are particularly prominent. (Isn’t this the QQ Show that fascinated us when we were young, and the recharge of QQ yellow diamonds to decorate our space…)

My Encounter: Who has seen me? Who have I seen? Who have I matched with?

This section is also designed to meet the social needs of users and grasp the user's desire to spy. These functions are like auxiliary functions and can be well combined with functional privileges and identity privileges. (Another privilege of QQ Yellow Diamond)

Social e-commerce (Soul Coin): can be used to purchase virtual services or products such as matching prop cards, super cute face-pinching props, heart-warming gifts, and guardian pendants. The platform’s gift giving methods include: daily check-in, inviting friends, platform rewards, etc.

Virtual goods: Purchase of virtual goods such as props, gifts, guardian pendants, etc. Users’ payment scenarios include group chat parties, games, etc.

Virtual services: hidden in various functions (an excellent development point), basic functions are free to use, and value-added functions require soul coins to purchase and pay for redemption. For example, after the free opportunity in the cute face video function is used up, every 10 souls are purchased to match the opportunity, etc., to increase the rights of paying users or provide more accurate services.

The platform gives away Soul coins in the following ways: daily sign-in, platform rewards, and combined with the user's incentive system . Soul coins, as a social currency, are material rewards for users.

The sign-in is set to double on the third, sixth, and seventh days, which shows that these are the key time points for user sign-in loss. The main purpose of platform rewards is to guide user behavior. For example, you can get 5 soul coins after completing the evaluation for the first time to increase the evaluation rate.

The soul coins given by the platform have an expiration date and are more restrictive in their use. On the one hand, this speeds up the user experience on the platform, and on the other hand, it promotes the user's actual purchase demand for soul coins, achieving a conversion effect.

(5) Referral

Material incentives: In the "Self" settings page, there is a Recommend Soul option. Inviting friends can get Soul Coin rewards. The more active the friends you invite, the more Soul Coin rewards you will get. Soul Coin is Soul's social currency, which can be purchased, redeemed, and given away on the platform for exclusive rights and interests.

Earn Soul coins immediately: stimulate users who want material incentives to click and share;

Invitation code: Exclusive, creating an exclusive and customized invitation feeling;

Watch video tutorials: reduce users’ fear of sharing steps and guide them to complete sharing behavior;

Limited-time challenge: motivate users with low sharing desire to complete sharing behavior;

Small design: When you take a screenshot of the Soul APP page, an exclusive page will be generated, with a download QR code at the bottom of the page, plus the product positioning "social metaverse for young people" and the product icon. This small detail is quite touching.

4. Operational Suggestions

Recommendation stage: The rewards for inviting users can be set more obviously.

The functional steps of this page are: open the app - click on the "Self" page option - click on the settings in the upper right corner - "Recommend Soul" in the lower middle of the page (light gray supplementary note: you can get Soul coins for free by inviting friends). First, the steps are a bit cumbersome, and second, the position and color of "Recommend Soul" are not prominent enough, and the reach to users is not strong enough.

Anti-loss mechanism: Soul is very suitable for establishing and cultivating shallow relationships. Once users want to establish deep relationships, they often turn to social platforms for acquaintances (WeChat). Soul’s current solution to this is to block keywords and make messages invisible when sent to other social platform accounts. This solution is not a long-term solution.

Other operating mechanisms can be used to increase users' dependence on the platform. How to find a balance between users' sense of security on stranger social platforms may be the key.