Review of short video community product operation skills!

I have been working in a startup team on a sports short video community for more than a year. Now I will break down the entire system in detail for you. The following is the outline of this article.

1. Product Positioning

1.1 Product Positioning and User Portrait

Whether it is a presentation, an interview, or communicating with other product people, the first step is usually to get to know you clearly

What is your product positioning? Product functional architecture?

What is a product user portrait? (How to conduct user research and what conclusions can be obtained from demand analysis) and

We will even get to the bottom of issues such as product commercialization and monetization (business model ) , and ask them thoroughly.

So no matter what stage you are as a PM, even if you are only responsible for basic business at work (drawing prototypes, writing documents, product assistant, intern), don't think that these problems are only what the leader or boss thinks. A PM who does not think about issues at these levels will not be able to look at his or her product from a holistic perspective. If he or she only focuses on the user experience of the page, he or she will easily become a workaholic whose most work is worthless.

Product positioning: A short video community for young people to enjoy sports, making sports fun and easy

User profile: Young people aged 20-35 who are interested in sports. There are slightly more young women than men. Mainly in first-tier cities

Content positioning: Trendy sports culture, novel sports forms, easy sports methods

User segmentation: Sports novices (fat loss and body shaping based on daily life scenarios)

Sports enthusiasts with a good foundation in sports (get training methods, tips, fitness meals and motivation for fitness)

Fitness experts (publish content and exchange sports)

Product value:

Sports novice user needs: do not want to be too professional in fitness, just learn some simple movements with a small amplitude, and exercise based on life scenarios; many pain points (thick legs, big belly, shoulder and neck pain, cervical spine anxiety), short-term effect;

Sports enthusiasts: They will learn systematic courses online and offline and have a certain foundation in sports. Kill time in fragmented time by watching sports goddesses and gods, some fitness exercises, and fat-reducing meals; quickly acquire fitness knowledge points; motivate yourself to continue exercising;

Sports expert: Self-control Fitness is a long-term hobby of mine. Find a sports community to communicate with and show off your body results.

1.2 User Research

We have never regarded user research as an important task. Later, when I communicated with Skyworth's senior product manager , I was reminded of the importance he attached to this area. Since I don’t have a large sample of practical experience to verify the following steps, these are just my basic ideas about user research . If you want to correct me or communicate with me, please leave your comments in the comment section.

Supplement: Tucao Jianshu's content review

The content of our platform is mainly PGC (see the next paragraph for the reason). The content posted by users is shown as successfully posted on the front end and posted to personal homepages and communities, but in fact it is only visible to users. The display status of this content is hidden in the background and needs to be reviewed and displayed by the content team. High-quality content will be given weight to increase exposure. If the review involves violations, a system message will be sent to inform the user that the content has been blocked due to violations. There will be no message notification if the review is passed.

The platform is mainly based on PGC content, and a large amount of content library needs to be filled in the early stage. The reasons are as follows:

1. In the early stage of content platform operation , especially sports and fitness content, it was mainly posted by a few people and watched by the majority . Users rarely posted actively, and we did not optimize the video release functions such as editing, special effects and beauty.

2. The header content represents the overall coordination of the platform . Any deviation may lead to the phenomenon of bad money driving out good money . Take the launch of Jianshu and Renren is a Product Manager (hereinafter referred to as “Renren”) as examples. Articles published on Jianshu do not require review, but articles published on Renren require very strict manual review. When I logged into Jianshu last night, I saw an article on the homepage titled "I found a box of contraceptives in my husband's car", which made me feel disgusted. I will continue to choose to publish my opinions on Jianshu, but judging from the health of the platform's professional community, I still prefer Renren.

2. Product Core Function Architecture

Why do we want to create a sports short video community? Through user research, we obtained the following feedback from the above three types of users:

Take sports enthusiasts (who have a certain fitness foundation) as an example:

User needs: I can find interesting sports content in my spare time, and high-quality content can be presented to me in the simplest way. I am not sure about the direction of the content, but I hope it will surprise me.

Goal and motivation: Make use of fragmented time and satisfy content-based entertainment needs through the simplest operations in a mobile scenario.

Human nature and values: Obtain more information through lower-cost methods, pursue high quality and efficiency, and believe that the next one will be cooler and more exciting . (There is currently no product that can meet this requirement)

Function: Based on the content recommendation in the form of short videos, you can continuously obtain recommended content by just sliding down, and provide visual impact in the form of immersive experience;

Take sports beginners as an example:

User needs: Find interesting sports content in your spare time to solve body shape problems in life;

Goal and motivation: Solve problems based on real-life scenarios

Human nature and values: lazy and unwilling to learn professional systematic movements, wanting to quickly solve body shape and weight loss problems;

Function: Video content is spread based on life scenarios

2.1 Short Videos

2.2 Community

2.3 Product Retention Function Matrix [Important Methodology for Product Function Analysis]

During the product iteration process, data point analysis methods are used to discover problems in product functional modules and find corresponding solutions. During the functional iteration process, data is used for evaluation and verification to form a closed loop. The most commonly used one is the product feature retention matrix .

Function 1 Function 2 High activity and high retention : This is the PMF in the product, which refers to the function of matching the product with the market;

Function 3: Low activity and high retention : QQ had a one-click wifi connection in the early years, which is very practical in many scenarios, but it is placed in the "My Page"-"Settings", with a deep entrance and a function under the third-level page; improve the function exposure rate;

Function 4: High activity and low retention: For example, after we successfully pay, the red envelope coupon collection page will pop up. At first we would click on them, but after clicking a few times we found that they were all third-party ads. Originally, giving rebates after consumption is a process that pleases users psychologically, but forced operational implantation has led to users reducing their interest in receiving red envelopes and coupons.

Function 5: Low activity and low retention functions should be considered for offline and optimization;

Take our short video product as an example:

1. Analyze the core functions of the product

2. Conduct a chart analysis on the activity and retention rate of functions to obtain intuitive conclusions.

3. Analyze the community functions and the reasons for the existence of PGC respectively. Draw conclusions respectively.

3. Product Operation : Content Operation + Channel Promotion

1.1 Content library construction

1. The content library needs to be filled in the initial stage of its establishment . Create a cold start community and collect content by manual transfer. We developed a backend to crawl videos from foreign platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. We also cooperate with brokerage companies and gyms to exchange traffic.

2. Content classification : Establish a labeling system for content. Classify the content into level 1 or 2 and label each piece of content. Facilitates content delivery.

3. Tag matching and weighted recommendation of selected content. First create a content selection library. Get user preference categories. Push selected videos in your favorite categories. The main purpose of selected videos is to increase the number of likes, comments, and background weight to improve the ranking weight, thereby gaining exposure opportunities.

1.2 Content characteristics:

1. The selected video content needs to quickly meet the strong needs of users and gain their attention with visual impact . You can consider the male god (cool) goddess (Victoria's Secret) show, extreme sports, dance, celebrities, comedy, and micro-tutorials.

2. Make a collection of pain point topics. It is ineffective and does not address the common pain points of current users.

eg: When sitting down, the belly has 3 layers of fat. Summer fat loss shows off the body

3. Content release time: mainly during users’ leisure time, preferably between 12-1:30 noon and 7-11 pm. If there is enough content, you can try to cover more leisure time.

1.3 Content Operation Strategy

1. WeChat community: Introduce new users through the WeChat ecosystem and introduce content into the community to increase user reading and download volume (community activities can include live classes and exchanges with internet celebrities);

2. Use a weighted approach to simulate the access data of 10 or 20 times the actual number of users (initial likes, number of followers, and number of participants). To create the feeling of a popular community, the content team manually adds 5-10 comments on selected content;

3. Apply for community qualifications in advance to avoid delaying the project progress. (ICP, Wenwangwen)

2. Channel promotion

Community: Find and join QQ groups and WeChat groups that match user profiles, share content within the group, and gain user attention.

Community: Share video content to communities such as QQ Space, Moments, and Weibo to attract user attention.

Mutual promotion: Cooperate with other IPs for promotion and exchange channels.

KOL: Screen big V paid recommendations to gain user attention.

Currently, the content and channels have been built, but we are relatively weak in user activation and community operations, so retention is low.

4. Commercialization: Content + Traffic

Content + traffic decomposition steps are as follows: channel construction - content construction - traffic diversion - monetization

The commercialization model is not something that can be thought of or determined on a whim; the initial direction will be established in the early stages of product design. During the product design and operation stages, continuous exploration and adjustments will be made as the market changes and problems arise. At present, our platform wants to place advertisers’ videos based on platform traffic and video sales, and in the short term we plan to connect to mini-program ads (static images appear in the middle of video switching, home page banner, side icon entrance, and video and text pinned to the top of circles and topics).

Because my main job is to be responsible for product design and operation. Therefore, the third and fourth stages in the above figure are subdivided into product design and product operation stages.

Phase 1 0-1 : Determine user pain points through user research and design the MVP minimum feasible solution for the product. Follow the product usability principle , lead the team to complete the primary development of the product within 1 week, establish a seed user group, listen to feedback to determine whether the product demand is reasonable.

Phase II 1-N: After the solution is verified to be feasible, the product in this phase follows the principle of ease of use. Optimize the core functions of the product, revise the overall style, and refine the content operations. Activate the community, find campus clubs, and have offline small Bs build circles for them in exchange for offline user content.

The third phase of commercialization : continuous drainage is still in progress.

4.1 Channel Construction

As a short video product targeting young C-end users, our first task is to understand the target users and find their pain points. Therefore, in the early stage of demand analysis, we conducted in-depth research and repeated speculation on the target population. When we decided to get involved in the short video field, there were already many similar products on the market, such as Meipai, which focuses on women and white-collar workers, Kuaishou, which surrounds the city from the countryside, and Douyin, which focuses on music trends. So where are our opportunities? What are the pain points for young people watching sports short videos? In order to clarify the core issue of product demand, we used a combination of large-scale questionnaires, focus groups and in-depth interviews to explore young people's ideas and pain points regarding the gameplay of sports short videos from both macro and micro perspectives .

Source of survey population sample:

Campus clubs: Dance club, Cycling club, Outdoor rock climbing club

Fitness crowd: cooperative gym members and coaches

Professional fitness people: athletes, gym owners, fitness influencers, professional bodybuilders

4.2 Content Sources

The content provided by the cooperating agency Gym Xiaob was later used by the platform to provide high-quality content through overseas pseudonymous accounts due to the high degree of reliance on these content.

The short video community is driven by content and users, with content creativity as its core, and continuously provides users with high-quality content, thereby bringing itself stable, high-quality traffic conversions. Building a C-end content platform and promoting it requires a lot of resource investment, which would be difficult for a startup company to bear unilaterally. After being introduced by investors, it decided to enter into a strategic partnership with a leading company in the domestic cultural and entertainment field. The partner planned to incubate a short video platform centered on internet celebrities internally. As an agency with a large reserve of high-quality internet celebrity artists, the two hit it off, exchanged advantageous resources, and began to jointly develop the project.

5. Product Manager Model

1. Commercialization capability: Reversing thinking and returning to the essence of business

The goal of Internet products

The traditional way of thinking of Internet product managers when making products is generally like this: create an interesting (useful) function to attract a large number of users; retain users through operational means and increase user activity; and on this basis, conduct commercial monetization (advertising, games, e-commerce). In the Internet+ era, it should actually be the other way around: the first thing you should think about is whether the business model can work!

Let’s explain why this is the case.

Let’s first look at the value of a company:

Listed companies: Company value ( VALUE ) = price-earnings ratio (PE) × profit (PROFIT)

Non-listed companies: Company value (VALUE) ∝ discounted cash flow (DCF)

If you invest in stocks, you should be very clear about the price-to-earnings ratio. This PE value is a coefficient and is related to many factors in the entire industry. What needs to be explained here is that profits and corporate value are directly proportional. This is the essence of the value of a listed company - in fact, it is the embodiment of profitability. For startups (non-listed companies), the company's valuation is essentially a reflection of its future profitability. But in fact we will find a problem: in the Internet industry, few people discuss income, including myself. Everyone is talking about user experience, user volume, activity, etc. The reason for this is that the activity of a product is almost proportional to its revenue . Let’s take Tencent as an example. From the financial report, we can see that each active user contributes 7 yuan in revenue to Tencent and a net profit of 2 yuan. Therefore, the market value of an Internet company is actually proportional to the number of active users. This is the logic behind the valuation of Internet companies.

This was indeed obvious in previous Internet companies. But in today's Internet environment, this model faces certain problems because we are in an Internet bubble environment.

Why we are in a dot-com bubble:

We all know a simple formula, profit (DCF) ∝ (revenue — cost), a company's profit is equal to (proportional to) revenue minus cost. To explain the Internet bubble, we can actually see it from this formula.

Let’s first look at user acquisition costs. In 2012, mobile Internet was in a period of crazy growth, which is what we call the bonus period. At that time, I was working on the App Store at Lenovo, and we were begging developers to upload apps to the App Store (a situation that is unimaginable now), so the CPA cost at that time was 0. By 2014, the CPA was about 1.5-2 yuan. And last year, the CPA for each user was 5-10 yuan.

Let’s look at user activity costs. In 2012, an app only needed to satisfy functional needs to retain users. For example, Moji Weather has useful functions, so users will basically stay. In 2013-2014, there were many competing products in one category, and retention depended on user experience, aesthetics, etc. By 2015, everyone knew that retaining users depended on red envelopes, and users would only stay if they were subsidized.

Finally, look at earning ability. In fact, the first ones to enjoy the user dividend were of course BAT. They acquired a large number of users during the bonus period, and the users' revenue scenarios were naturally controlled by BAT; so it would be very difficult to create a revenue scenario now, because most of the users' needs have been met. Let’s take games as an example (games are the most commercialized): in 2012, there was only one game in each subcategory; in 2013, there were 5-10 games in each subcategory; in 2015, 5 high-quality games were launched every week. From this we can see that it is actually very difficult for startups today to grab revenue scenarios.

Overall, we found that 90% of startups have negative profits (revenue - cost) and they remain negative.

Author: Carly_Dingdong

Source: Carly_Dingdong