How to do a good job in user operation of Toutiao?

If I am the operator of Toutiao account , how can I do a good job in user operation of Toutiao account?

1. Strategic Level Analysis

1.1 Platform

(1) Platform positioning

A content creation platform for media/self-media under Toutiao.

Slogan: What you create is the headline.

Highlights:

1. Focus on originality - Toutiao emphasizes originality and has a unique anti-duplicate protection mechanism.
2. Smart recommendation——intelligent algorithm, traffic distribution, quickly acquire a large number of mobile reading users.
3. Advertising revenue.

(2) Entry threshold

The threshold is low, and any national institutions, media, and self-media that meet the requirements can apply by filling out relevant information.

Personal experience: After submitting the relevant identity information and linking my WeChat public account, I was approved that evening, so the threshold is relatively low and the application is also very convenient.

(3) Current status of Toutiao accounts

According to an announcement by Toutiao, as of March 2018, the total number of Toutiao accounts has exceeded 1.5 million, with 600,000 pieces of content published every day.

According to the release of the 2018 Toutiao creator big data, Toutiao creators have published a total of 164.67 million articles, with a total word count of 159.9 billion. The total number of videos is 153.28 million, and the total duration reaches 424.18 million minutes.

The data shows that the account most followed by those born in the 1990s is @美食作家王刚, the account most followed by those born in the 1980s is @陈翔六点半, and the account most followed by those born in the 1970s is @张召忠.

There are also significant differences between the north and the south in terms of favorite creators. Southern users pay more attention to @一禅小和尚, @李永乐老师 and @李子柒, while northern users pay more attention to @梁宏达, @马未都 and @papi酱.

Data source: Toutiao data

The self-media operators of Toutiao have more participants in culture and entertainment; in terms of content popularity, entertainment and current affairs news content have higher attention.

1.2 Market

(1) Market analysis

With the rapid development of the Internet and the continuous upgrading of user consumption needs, self-media is moving towards content specialization, diversification of forms, video socialization, and from UGC to PGC. Features: Professional vertical fields, specific audiences, intelligent content recommendations, and higher monetization potential.

The main self-media platforms in my country currently include WeChat public accounts, Toutiao accounts, Weibo, Baijia accounts, Sohu accounts, and enterprise accounts. According to statistics, as of November 2018, the total number of registered self-media accounts of all kinds was about 31.55 million. Among them, WeChat public accounts, with more than 20 million registrations, accounted for more than 60% of the entire market, and the number of employees showed a continuous growth trend.

Data source: Chongguo Micromedia

(2) User Profile

Data source: Crawley Data

Women account for a large proportion, the age range is concentrated between 18 and 34 years old, and the user group tends to be younger; the regions are mainly distributed in the eastern coastal areas.

2. Content Organization

2.1 Content format

Graphic information, video information,

2.2 Content Sources

There are three main types:

1. UGC, user-generated content;
2. PGC, professional content production, created, organized and managed by Toutiao official;
3. PUGC, professional user-produced content, is further divided into three categories. One is the expert team invited by Toutiao from other MCN platforms; one is the expert users cultivated by Toutiao itself; and the last one is celebrity KOLs, who use the influence of celebrities to bring in a large number of fan users.

2.3 Type and quantity of content

Judging from the current content of Toutiao, excluding the recommendation column, it covers 32 topics including entertainment, technology, health, etc., which basically cover the topics that users are interested in.

2.4 Content Recommendation Mechanism

Content recommendation form: homepage feed flow;

Content recommendation mechanism: algorithm recommendation, traffic distribution.

3. Toutiao User Operation

3.1 Mining and obtaining Toutiao authors

(1) Discover potential creators among Toutiao’s content consumers and train them

Although the main operation behavior of this type of users is content consumption, they also publish UGC, which generally has the following characteristics:

1. Original content
2. Enthusiasts in a certain vertical field
3. High quality and excellent content
4. Have a certain frequency of posting and updating

These users are likely to become high-quality creators. The platform can provide certain incentives and special push notifications to these users. For example, the platform can push Toutiao account applications to users:

"Apply to become a Toutiao self-media author, you can enjoy high incomes such as advertising revenue and article rewards. The threshold is low and the income is high. If you want to become an original creator, come and apply to join!" (The text is just a random example)

For some users who are not familiar with the Toutiao platform, we need to directly tell them its value to them - high returns, protection of originality, and an atmosphere of vertical creation; and for users who already have some understanding of it, we encourage them to apply to become Toutiao users through push notifications and incentives.

(2) Off-site communication

By distributing high-quality content off-site, we can build an active atmosphere in the vertical field, allowing the target audience to stay and produce content and participate in creation. For the off-site distribution of high-quality content, we can mainly start from these two points:

1) Spread through social media, such as WeChat, QQ, and Weibo

Users are encouraged to share. Currently, the channels through which users of Toutiao can share include: Duoshan, Moments, WeChat friends, DingTalk, QQ Space, QQ friends, etc.

2) Information promotion channels, such as some cooperative channels of Toutiao, etc.

(3) Invite talent teams from other MCN platforms to join

For example, Toutiao has launched the "MCN Cooperation Plan", which fully opens up MCN organizations to external parties for cooperation. The platform will provide MCN organizations with a better creative environment and more abundant means of monetization, helping MCN to grow better and faster.

(4) Celebrity KOL

Use the influence of celebrities to bring in a large number of fans and users.

On the one hand, we introduce celebrity endorsements, which are more convincing when the celebrities themselves use them; on the other hand, we look for and discover KOLs who have a say and influence in various fields. For example, group owners of active WeChat groups and QQ groups, entrepreneurs, experts in a certain vertical field, industry experts, journalists... these users are often producers of high-quality content. By introducing KOLs, the quality of article creation can be improved, which in turn encourages other users to continuously improve their own creative level.

(5) Lowering the threshold for content creation

To encourage users to create, we must make users realize that “I can also create” and expand the number of users who share creations. On the one hand, there is the threshold for applying for a Toutiao account, and on the other hand, there is the threshold for publishing articles.

3.2 User Stratification

Core business indicators: Toutiao is a content creation platform that focuses mainly on user participation in creation. The indicators can be specified as: the number of days from the last login; the number of logins within a month; the amount of content generated within a month.

Days since last login:

Number of logins in one month:

Number of contents produced in one month:

Combining these indicators, we can conclude that R5F5M5 is almost certainly the core user of the platform, as they maintain a high frequency of logging in and creating, while R1F1M1 can basically be confirmed to be a user who has either already left or is a very marginal user. If we further subdivide it, we can get R5F4M3, R1F5M2... Different operation strategies can be formulated for these different levels of users.

3.3 Core author maintenance

(1) Community maintenance

By establishing a community, high-quality authors and core users are brought into the group for special maintenance. There are activities that are specifically pushed reminders in the group, holiday greetings, etc.

(2) Resource Tilt

Content recommendation, brand recommendation, give core authors more traffic distribution, more recommendations and exposure.

(3) Emotional care

For example, during holidays, you can send some small gifts and holiday greetings to the core authors of this section to let users feel the platform's care and concern.

(4) Offline activities

For example, organizing birthday celebrations for core users during the anniversary celebration, or planning some offline product experience activities. Some of the offline activities that I know about Toutiao include e-commerce exchange meetings for service providers, meet-up with Toutiao Finance, author exchange salons, LIVE Academy, etc. By holding such offline activities, we can show our attention and cultivation of Toutiao authors.

(5) Logo, certificate

Create some scarcity for core users and give them differentiated treatment, such as special logos. As far as I know, the only two logos for Toutiao accounts are those with a V and those without a V. In this regard, can we enrich the level mechanism, for example, giving users different logos at different stages?

3.4 Encourage authors to continuously produce high-quality content

(1) Vertical fields

By establishing an active atmosphere of vertical interests, the quality of content produced by everyone in their respective areas of expertise or interests will be better.

(2) Cultivate star users/experts

You can select some users who write high-quality articles and are more professional in vertical fields and cultivate them into star users. Content consumers can pay attention to these star users in various interest areas, further encouraging users to improve content quality and professionalism.

(3) Effective incentive mechanism

If you want users to provide high-quality content continuously, you cannot neglect the maintenance of every high-quality content provider. To capture their hearts, you need certain incentives.

① As a creator, everyone hopes to be recognized, so "being recommended" is a great incentive. The recommended items can be user accounts. For example, when a user clicks on a Toutiao search, the top column is a recommendation column. At the same time, the user's works (articles/videos) can also be recommended. The traffic distribution is determined by Toutiao's algorithm mechanism.

But there is also a problem. With more and more content, how to balance the distribution of traffic without reducing the enthusiasm of creators is a challenge we face.

②Sense of achievement and popularity

When a user's opinion articles are shared by many people and the quality of the content they continuously create is relatively high, they can be given common incentives such as competition maps, levels, titles, identity tags, points, achievement medals, rankings, etc.

For example, the measures that Toutiao currently has include: obtaining certification, adding a V, etc. To a certain extent, it is a recognition and affirmation of the high-quality content produced by users, and it gives them unique glory. In addition, the homepage of @头条号 often has sections such as "Name and praise these XX headlines", "Pay tribute to these 10,000 headlines", etc. Through official encouragement and praise, on the one hand, it can increase the popularity of these authors, and on the other hand, it can greatly stimulate the authors' enthusiasm.

③Material incentives

Currently, there are three ways for Toutiao to monetize: user rewards, Toutiao advertising, and platform subsidies.

These allow users to truly experience material income, and the higher the quality of the article, the more people will read it, and the more rewards and advertising income they can get. Therefore, it can motivate users to improve the quality of their articles and increase their enthusiasm for posting.

④ Vest account operation

This strategy can be used for new users of Toutiao accounts who do not have a fan base and have a low click-through rate and viewing volume. For example, they can click on the content and like, comment, and forward it. This will show in the user's mind that the content they produce is recognized by everyone and that their work is still read and liked by some people.

(4) Hot topics and activities

Users can be encouraged to participate in creation and stimulated to produce content by creating activities and hot topics. By initiating interesting and resonant topic discussions, we attract users to share their experiences and opinions and generate content.

① Qingyun Project

Under the Qingyun Plan of Toutiao platform, high-quality accounts can enjoy profit sharing. It is a direct material reward that can greatly promote the enthusiasm for creation.

②Open classes, training courses

By inviting high-quality author representatives or big names to share and give speeches, etc., we can provide other Toutiao authors with practical tips and techniques, so that high-quality authors can drive other authors.

③Advanced functions

Originality, double titles, optimization assistant, V certification and other advanced features create a special feeling for the author.

④Signing plan

I have seen some creative teams recruiting writers. Generally speaking, these writers are more professional and produce relatively high-quality content.

⑤Other writing activities and topics

Writing competitions, such as the National Style Project, an essay contest with prizes, and some hot topics: Everyone Talks about the College Entrance Examination, win a prize of 10,000 yuan; Summer Food Season, win a prize of 1,000 yuan, etc.

⑥ Crack down on low-quality content such as clickbait, rumors, false information, etc., and improve content quality.

3.5 Personal suggestions

There is an activity page only on the Toutiao homepage on the computer. There is no special activity page on the mobile phone. For some mobile phone users, the activity is not obvious. You can set a banner on the main page, or add an "activity" column on the personal homepage.

The growth system is refined.

First, the current growth system of Toutiao accounts is to apply for certification, from ordinary users - creators - high-quality creators. There are relatively few level divisions, and the application threshold for high-quality creators is not high. There are five conditions: avatar, user name, bound mobile phone, publish 10 content pieces a month, and continuously contribute high-quality content in the field. This is not difficult for an author in a vertical field, so these three levels are actually not very motivating for the author, because it is easy to reach the highest level and there is no room for improvement. Therefore, you can consider increasing points and enriching the levels to make it easier for creators to feel the difference.

Second, the distinctions between different levels are relatively simple. Currently, the only known distinction is the V, which is divided into yellow V (certification number) and blue V (enterprise number). In this way, all Toutiao users actually appear to be divided into two categories: one with a V, and the other without a V, and the distinction is relatively simple.

You can consider adding levels, and different levels can enjoy special badges or logos, so that authors of different levels can be distinguished, and the authors themselves can clearly feel the difference, so the incentive effect will be more obvious.

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Author: Zhao

Source: An Operational Friend