Toutiao account operation: Here is a reusable methodology for increasing followers!

Many people think that when creating a headline account, they don’t need to worry about whether they have fans or not. This idea is outdated.

If you just want to make some pocket money and don't focus on the long term, fans really won't have much impact. But if you want to earn over 10,000 yuan a month or even more on Toutiao, you must have the support of fans.

The Toutiao account "Brain-opening Historical View" has 1.34 million fans and sold 6,937 sets of books (at 338 yuan each) in two days; the Toutiao account "Scientific Fishing" has 360,000 fans, and the Toutiao store has received more than 20,000 orders in half a year... These are all the results of monetization based on Toutiao account fans.

In this article, we will talk about the value of fans to Toutiao authors and how we can increase fans.

01Why do you have to care about increasing followers when creating a Toutiao account?

1. The number of fans determines long-term monetization income

Starting from the second half of 2018, Toutiao has strengthened the creation of its fan ecosystem, and has achieved some results to date.

At present, Toutiao has initially built a small ecosystem for fan monetization. This trend will only strengthen in the future, not weaken. Just like WeChat public account owners can sell courses/products, etc. to their fans, Toutiao accounts can also sell their own products to fans.

Currently, on Toutiao, you can sell your products to fans through products such as Toutiao Store (similar to Youzan on WeChat), paid columns, paid courses, paid circles (Toutiao version of Xiaomiquan), etc. Unlike WeChat official accounts, purely marketing articles have not been released yet.

Among Toutiao authors, some have Toutiao stores with a turnover of tens of millions in 2018, some have paid columns with a monthly income of more than 50,000, and some have paid courses with a two-month turnover of more than 600,000. The circle is still in internal testing. As far as I know, there are authors who sell more than 100 courses a week.

All of these monetizations are based on a certain fan base . The good news is that you don’t necessarily have to have 100,000 or even 1 million fans to monetize. In fact, 10,000 fans offer many monetization possibilities.

2. The number of fans affects article recommendations/advertising revenue

On Toutiao, even an article with 0 fans can write a hit or even one with 100,000+ views, because the machine mainly recommends based on interests, but this does not mean that fans have no influence on recommendations.

Let’s review the principles of headline recommendations:

The machine identifies the article - cold start phase (the machine recommends the article to a small number of accurate readers) - continued promotion phase (determine whether to continue to recommend and the level of recommendation based on cold start data) - repeat the previous step

In this process, cold start reader feedback data is very critical (including click rate/completion rate/interaction, etc.) . During the cold start, the machine will give priority to fans of Toutiao accounts as target readers for recommendation. If there are no fans, all recommendations will be made to strangers. If there are fans, recommendations will be made to some fans + some strangers.

Fans follow you because they like your content, so after receiving machine recommendations, they are more likely to click/read/interact. In other words, if there are more fans, the data feedback in the cold start phase will usually be better.

This is also the reason why the average data of articles by authors with hundreds of thousands of fans is better.

02 How to increase followers on Toutiao accounts scientifically: Content

It’s not easy to increase followers. When I see authors sharing their stories of increasing followers, such as cases of increasing 5,000 followers in 2 weeks, I will pay close attention to them.

I have summarized some experiences of increasing followers and would like to share them with you today.

1. Make good use of the "Weibo Toutiao" tool to increase followers

In most areas, videos/short videos and micro headlines are more efficient in increasing followers. The production cost of videos/short videos is higher, and Weitao is suitable for authors in almost all fields.

I am more familiar with Wei Toutiao, so I will focus on how to increase followers using Wei Toutiao.

Wei Toutiao can be understood as the Toutiao version of Weibo, which publishes short content. On your mobile phone, click the "Publish" button in the upper right corner and select "Post Picture and Text" to publish. It is very quick.

In the past, I often encountered authors who said that they didn’t want to post on Weibo Toutiao because there was no profit. In fact, if you master the method, posting on Weibo headlines can be very efficient in increasing followers, and there is also a way to monetize it.

A few days ago, an emotional counselor told me that by posting on Weibo, he gained more than 5,000 followers in two weeks, and his fans increased from 2,000 to 7,000 (the account has the original mark/V mark). In the past two weeks, the paid column sold more than 200 orders and earned more than 4,000 yuan.

The high efficiency of Weitoutiao in increasing followers is reflected in:

1. A single piece of content only has a few hundred words and can be created in fragmented time.
2. For hot topics, Weitao can quickly follow up.

Weitoutiao monetization path:

1. Promote your own paid columns/shops and other products.
2. Promote and expose your own activities, etc., and attract traffic.
3. The merchandise card function has been opened to high-quality authors who can produce stable Weibo headlines, and they can sell products to their fans.

When using Wei Toutiao to increase followers, you must pay attention to the following points:

1. Frequency: Keep posting and be an active author

The machine needs to evaluate the overall content quality of the account's micro headlines based on the content of the micro headlines, and recommend individual micro headlines on this basis.

If you have just started posting and have not yet entered the machine's evaluation pool, the recommendations may be relatively general, and the average reading volume of each piece of content may be dozens to hundreds. If you keep posting actively on Weibo (such as 3 to 5 posts per week) and the content quality is good, the posts will enter the evaluation process within a period of time. After the system evaluation is OK, the account will achieve a leap from hundreds to thousands of average readings of a single Weibo post.

If your average reading volume is still dozens or hundreds, don't be discouraged. Maybe you just need to keep writing for a while.

If an account enters the review pool but the content does not meet the requirements and is not temporarily evaluated by the machine as being particularly suitable for recommendation status, the Weitouti data may also be bad.

In addition, the machine will re-evaluate the level of the account's micro headlines content every once in a while. If the content quality changes from high to low, the system will adjust the recommendation data.

Therefore, let’s focus on how the system evaluates and which content will be identified as high-quality by the machine.

2. Content: Write original content with incremental information

Which content is more likely to be recognized as “high-quality content” by the system? Which accounts will be favored by the machine and receive better recommendations?

Answer: Original, vertical content, incremental information, and personalized headlines.

On the contrary, the following types of accounts may not receive good recommendations from Weitoutiao:

1. Content plagiarism/copying
2. The content of the account’s micro headlines is not vertical: today it posts food, tomorrow it posts outfits, and the day after tomorrow it posts entertainment…
3. The content of Weitou.com contains marketing information (such as traffic diversion)
4. Daily life account: Weitao is not the circle of friends. If you are not a celebrity/star/industry influencer, readers will most likely not be interested in what you eat, drink, defecate and urinate. The proportion of this type of content on micro headlines should be lower, not exceeding 30%.

Here are a few examples of high-quality micro headlines in the psychological/emotional field:

I would like to focus on the dimension of "incremental information" . The micro headlines of the above authors all contain incremental information. Generally speaking, content of dozens of words is not likely to be informative. Content of 100 or even several hundred words may be more likely to be informative.

In my opinion, the standard for incremental information is: the reader doesn’t know me at all. After reading my micro headline, will he feel rewarded? Will he follow me and become a fan because of this sense of “gain”? This sense of "gain" can make readers feel that the book has valuable information, or it can trigger strong emotional resonance.

From this perspective, please do not post on Weibo or Moments to record your three meals a day, daily life, etc. It’s okay to post it occasionally, but this content should not become the main body of your Weibo headlines. Because readers may pay attention to the daily lives of celebrities and stars, but are not interested in the mumblings of ordinary people.

Some friends may be confused. Don’t you want the content to be personalized? Why are you not welcome to publish life-related content?

Please distinguish between personalized content and daily life accounts. Personalization refers more to the personal style of the content. You can share knowledge based on your own life experiences, but don’t just write about your life experiences. It would be best if your content could make readers feel rewarded, resonate with them emotionally, or provide them with useful tips. (If you feel that you cannot grasp this degree, it is recommended to post less of this kind)

For example, the following Weibo headline narrates a story in real life, but it actually contains the concept of raising children.

Sometimes, when the requirement for content is to add incremental information, authors tend to go to another extreme: they become keen on teaching theoretical knowledge and concepts. In this case, although the content is high-quality, users may not like it and the readership may not be good. Users are not students, so don’t teach them boring theoretical knowledge. It’s best to explain your knowledge to them in easy-to-understand words or combine it with stories.

3. Structure: Cleverly set up suspense to guide readers to finish reading the content

Many people pay attention to creating suspense when writing articles, and pay attention to setting hooks in the reading process. By setting suspense/questions/denials, etc., they attract readers to keep reading. But writing Weibo headlines may feel much easier, just like writing on WeChat Moments, it can be done in one go.

Although micro headlines are only a few hundred words long, they can be formatted. If the structure can be handled like a short article, rather than being straightforward, readers may be more easily attracted. Especially the first few sentences of the micro headlines, which directly determine whether the readers will click on it, and are particularly important.

This is considered an advanced requirement. Not everyone is required to do it, but you can consciously cultivate your awareness in this regard. Awareness is the first step to doing it.

Here are a few examples of popular micro headlines. You can take a closer look and find that there are actually some tricks:

(Read more than 2 million times)

If many people were to write this content, they would first write the theory behind it and then use cases to prove their conclusions. However, in that case, it would actually raise the threshold for readers to click and read. Tell the story first, then explain the moral. This structure is much better. Especially the first sentence, which doesn’t have many words, but actually tells an attractive story in a concise and powerful way.

4. Layout and illustrations: stick to illustrations and pay attention to blank lines

It is recommended that each micro headline be accompanied by a picture, and the picture should match the text as much as possible. Content with pictures and content without pictures have obviously different appeal to readers.

You can look at the picture below. In the states of no picture, one accompanying picture, and three accompanying pictures, the space occupied on the mobile phone screen is obviously occupied by the three-picture mode, and the advantage is too obvious.

Typesetting mainly means paying attention to blank lines and avoiding long paragraphs of text, as this will give readers a poor experience and a low completion rate, which may ultimately affect the recommendation data.

Please take a look at the following three pieces of content. The content itself is of high quality, but the reading experience is completely different. The first one is really too stressful to read, while the third one allows us to read it comfortably.

Readers' pickiness often lies in the details. Controlling the rhythm of blank lines will provide a better experience.

Sometimes I will encounter feedback from authors: I feel that I have achieved all the points you mentioned above, but the data is still not ideal.

The biggest possibility is: the topic can be further optimized. Next, let’s talk about how to choose good topics and combine them with hot topics to create popular content.

1. Topics of practical information/opinions

In the field of psychology and emotions, most authors usually choose topics that are "dry goods" or "opinion-based".

There are two things to note about this type of content: First, try to write more topics that are of higher interest to users in the field. If you don't know what's getting the most attention, check out what topics other authors have written that have become popular. Second, don't make it too serious or boring. Speak in human language and appropriately incorporate some life experiences or stories to make it more readable.

(9 million views: This case is so special)

In addition to writing based on life experiences, you can also write based on common hot topics. For example, use more celebrities/stars as cases. Generally speaking, the average data of this type of content will be higher than that of life experience content, because users are naturally more interested in people they are familiar with.

2. Hot Topics

The key to increasing followers is to rely on hot products, and hot content is the engine of hot products.

The number of readers of many authors’ micro headlines is stable at a few thousand, and the number of readers is relatively small, so I would suggest choosing topics that focus on hot topics. Real-time hot spots are likely to produce big hits.

How to use hot topics to create popular micro headlines with over 10,000 reads, 100,000+ or ​​even 1 million+ views?

(1) Identify hot spots and follow up quickly.

You must be quick to chase hot spots. Hot spots include popular hot spots and industry hot spots. The former are more likely to explode.

How to find hot spots?

1. References on Toutiao: Toutiao Index backend search popularity; hot content on the first few screens of Toutiao recommended channels/hot channels; hot list of Micro Toutiao channels
2. Off-site references: Weibo hot search/public account/Zhihu hot list, etc. (it is recommended to enable push notification)

You can open the push permissions of several information apps to get hot topics in time.

(2) The content can stimulate thinking and discussion (important!!)

There are so many hot-selling contents, but those that can really become million-level hits are often controversial topics and viewpoints.

(9 million reads)

In this hot topic, many people believe that the driver did not intentionally turn the steering wheel and drive under the bridge. Teacher Wu Zhihong disagreed and elaborated on his own point of view. This kind of controversial content is easy to explode. We do not support writing something against your own will just for the sake of being popular, but if you have your own ideas on a controversial topic, please express them clearly.

Spenser once shared in "Writing is the Best Self-Investment" that there are three types of article titles:

1. The first type is straightforward and leaves readers with no feelings after reading it. For example: "The Three Years Since I Left the System"
2. The second type can arouse readers' strong curiosity. For example: "In the three years since I left the system, my income has increased 100 times"
3. The third type not only arouses curiosity, but also brings up topics of its own. It is a truly first-class title. For example: "No one around me who has left the system regrets it so far."

Personally, I think this also applies to Weitao, and you should try to write the second and third types of content. Among them, controversial content that can trigger discussions among readers is more likely to go viral.

(1.2 million views)

The reason why this content became popular is not only because the structure of the article tells the story first and then analyzes, which makes it easy for readers to read it, but also because the topic is somewhat controversial: many parents believe that children should be beaten, and they think this view is too exaggerated. They disagree with the author's point of view and start interacting in the comment section.

When Huang Zhizhong was talking about "How to make an argument in a debate", he said something to the effect of: The argument must be short and clear. Many debate topics in life are often not about right or wrong, otherwise there would be no need for debate. If your argument is mediocre, you will lose readers. Because what readers want is to hear your opinions and views when they are struggling between the two directions of the debate topic. If you say that this makes sense and that also has a certain rationality, the readers will be angry.

Therefore, in both articles and Weibo headlines, please clearly state your opinions and do not try to cover everything.

(3) Find a good angle and write informative and hot content

Many authors complain that they also follow hot topics, but the results are not good. That may be because your content only talks about the hot topics again without adding any incremental information. If it's just a retelling of the news, every author can write it. Why should readers become your fans? He can just watch the news himself. The following two pieces of content provide interpretations of hot topics rather than just narrating events.

The standard for incremental information is: the reader doesn’t know me at all. After reading my micro headline, will he feel rewarded? Will he pay attention to me because of this "sense of gain"?

This sense of "gain" can be a feeling of having gained valuable information, or it can trigger a strong emotional resonance.

For hot social news, self-media reports may not pass the review, so be prepared.

2. Create a good title to create a "hot article"

Just like increasing followers of a public account, a hit article can significantly increase the number of followers. One hit content can increase the number of followers by hundreds or even thousands. How to use articles to create a hit?

I have always felt that topic and content are the most important.

But in today's article, I will not talk about topic selection. I would like to talk about this issue from the perspective of the recommendation principle of Toutiao. Because I have met many authors who are experts in topic selection, but have not been able to get popular with Toutiao, I would like to talk more about the recommendation principles of Toutiao, which may be of more help to everyone.

On Toutiao, article reading volume = machine recommendation volume x click-through rate

To get more readers, you need to do two things: familiarize yourself with the recommendation mechanism and increase the click-through rate of your articles.

1. Analysis of the recommendation principle of Toutiao

This article will not expand on this topic, otherwise the article will be too long. I will publish a separate article to explain the recommendation principle later.

As for the factors that affect the recommendation, you can look at this long picture:

Among the factors that influence recommendations, click-through rate and completion rate are very important.

Let’s focus on how to increase click-through rate.

2. Analysis of the techniques for creating popular headlines on Toutiao

It is a science to come up with a good title that readers do not dislike, platforms do not suppress, and has a particularly high readership. I will write a separate article later to talk about how to come up with a title, but today I will just briefly talk about it.

To come up with a good title on Toutiao, the most important thing is to do two things well.

(1) Use the right keywords to help the machine accurately identify and recommend

The so-called hot words are keywords that are relatively popular over a period of time, or topics that users in the field pay special attention to. Reasonable use of hot words in titles or articles can significantly increase the number of recommendations.

There are two ways to find hot words:

The first is to collect keywords in the information flow, such as searching for the recently popular "The Wandering Earth" to see whether there are many articles and comments related to it, so that you can roughly judge the degree of readers' concern about it.

The second method is to use the "hot word analysis" function in the background of Toutiao, enter different keywords to compare the popularity index, and then decide which one to use in the title.

(2) Use popular techniques such as suspense/questions/numbers/turning points to stimulate readers’ interest.

I won’t go into details in this article, but I will recommend you a powerful tool. If you use it well, you will be able to write a hit article. The headline account "Headline Double Headline Selection" analyzes the titles of many articles with more than 100,000 views and more than 1 million views. Each article is worth your careful reading.

Finally, it usually takes more than 5 minutes to come up with a good title. To think of a good title, please prepare 30 minutes, come up with several, and then compare and choose. Don’t think that these 30 minutes are a waste of time. If few people read your content, then you may have wasted 3 hours writing the main article.

It is particularly important to emphasize that: Never create clickbait headlines just for the sake of readership. Creating clickbait headlines that are sensational and attract clicks will only lead to severe punishment from the platform, reader resistance, and ultimately elimination. This is extremely, extremely, extremely important.

In addition, it should be noted that a high number of readers does not necessarily mean that it will bring in a lot of fans. The key lies in whether the content is interesting. An article with over 100,000 views may not necessarily gain more followers than an article with 10,000 views. Only when you can provide content with incremental information will users feel the need to follow you.

03 How to increase followers on Toutiao accounts scientifically: Operations

1. Push Card

Push cards are divided into two types: ordinary cards and cluster cards.

How to increase the chances of entering the push card?

Accounts with original content, activeness, high quality and verified accounts are more likely to enter the recommendation card sequence and be displayed to more readers, thus increasing their followers without any effort. Due to space limitations, we can talk about how to add V separately later.

2. Forward the lucky draw

Retweeting for a lottery can significantly increase followers (you can require fans to participate to stimulate followers), and drawing money is the best effect. However, the fans brought by the lottery may not be so accurate.

Currently, this function is not open to all authors. It is mainly open to authors who have opened the original label. Students who have already opened it must make good use of it.

3. Join an MCN agency

Yes, Toutiao is now an MCN. If you have the opportunity to join a reliable MCN, you might as well give it a try. You will gain followers faster than going it alone.

Specifically, there are two benefits:

1. The platform will recommend resource packages to MCN, and MCN’s accounts will have more traffic support.
2. MCN may be able to give you relatively professional operational guidance.

PS: If you are an MCN student in the fields of general emotions/psychology/inspiration/beautiful writing/zodiac, we can connect with each other, the resources are very powerful.

4. Seize the celebrity/industry big V comment area (not the main point)

If you have more time, you can comment more on the posts of big V/famous people in your field and try to occupy the front row position in their comment section.

On the one hand, you may get mutual followers and brand flipping from big Vs to help you bring in fans; on the other hand, you can attract their fans to become your fans.

What content is more likely to take the front seat? Comments that receive more likes and other interactions will usually be ranked at the top of the comment section. In order to get readers' likes, your comments must be informative, either interesting or substantial, so that readers can resonate strongly.

For example: A few days ago, Bo Bangni joined Toutiao. The comment section was full of welcome messages from fans. The top message was this:

This content is more likely to occupy the front row than messages like "Welcome, Bonnie!" and the possibility of converting fans will be higher.

The netizens on Toutiao are very talented and there are many wonderful comments. It is not easy to grab the front row, so this operation method is only a supplement. If you were planning to leave a message, you can put more thought into your message after knowing this operation tip~

5. Strengthen personal IP and guide attention

At the end of your Toutiao account introduction/certification information/Toutiao article, please describe your expertise in detail and guide the author's attention.

For the same article, whether there is an introduction or not, the reader's mentality when deciding whether to pay attention to it will be very different. This small step may help you save many lost fans.

An introduction similar to the one below will do. If you are not that great, that’s okay. At least introduce your strengths and give readers a reason to pay attention to you.

04Try to set a small goal for yourself to increase your followers

Increasing followers without a plan is just a hooligan move. I suggest you make some small plans for the operation of your Toutiao account .

You can set a certain reading volume as a goal and work backwards to figure out how many posts to post every day. At the same time, carefully summarize which contents in your own content have a higher reading volume, and make appropriate adjustments to the topic selection direction.

Recently, many big-name authors of public accounts have begun to focus on Toutiao accounts, and Tang Xiaoxiao’s team is one of them. . You can see that they are really doing things with purpose and thinking. I hope you can also write more and do more research to find a way to increase your followers that suits you.

Related reading:

1. Toutiao account operation: Deconstructing the user life cycle of Toutiao today!

2. Toutiao account operation and promotion, do you know all these?

3. New Media Operation丨How to operate self-media platforms such as Toutiao and Baijiahao?

4. A collection of operating methods for self-media platforms such as Baijiahao and Toutiaohao!

5.How to operate Toutiao account? After reading this, you will be a master!

6. How to operate Toutiao account? There are 3 routines!

Author: Hu Shoushou

Source: Hu Shoushou loves to learn (huding2)