App Growth | NetEase Cloud Music’s Growth Path!

This article summarizes several growth methods of NetEase Cloud: an algorithmic recommendation mechanism that is tailored to each individual; rich UGC comments that showcase the most resonant content; a professional screen-sweeping team; a non-single-operation team, with collaboration and cross-border efforts to quickly penetrate the market; and a more user-friendly UED, with each revision always visually ahead of users.

On March 21, according to Tianyancha data: On March 18, the registered capital of Hangzhou NetEase Cloud Music Technology Co., Ltd., the operating entity of NetEase Cloud Music, increased from US$410.75 million to US$589 million, an increase of 30.29%. At the same time, Wang Shimu resigned from the position of supervisor and was replaced by Cao Si.

The development of NetEase Cloud Music seems to be a feat that responds to the wishes of the people. From its establishment to the present, the number of users has continued to grow. Its magical growth in standing out among QQ Music, Baidu Music, Kugou Music, and Xiami Music is fascinating, and Baidu's further investment further proves the success of NetEase Cloud Music.

Follow my thoughts and sort out NetEase Cloud Music’s ideas on products and marketing that are worth considering.

According to the public sharing of the vice president of NetEase Cloud Music and the head of NetEase Aesthetics, when NetEase Cloud Music wanted to enter this market, it had been thinking: What are the essential needs of music? What is the reason why users like NetEase?

No matter what product NetEase makes, it always thinks about the following questions:

Think about the essence of this problem. Analyze the competitors around you. Think about the future development trends in your industry and field.

With this kind of thinking, let’s analyze what are the essential needs of users for music products?

——It is to let users listen to their favorite songs.

This includes three levels:

There must be a large enough music library. There needs to be a "discovery" function to allow these tens of millions of songs to realize their value, otherwise it would just be buying a bunch of databases. To meet the personalized needs of users.

Looking back, music software giants all have one thing in common: music library products .

The so-called music library products mean that most users can only find the songs they want to listen to through searching. These giants do not regard "discovering music" as the most important way, but rather make it more of a tool for listening to music . The music did not become popular in this place, but became popular in other places. Users knew about it and then came to this place to listen to it.

In addition to these giants, there are also some niche products. They have the function of discovering music, but there are also some problems. These products are too complicated, have too many functions, and the focus is not very clear.

After thinking about the competition in the market, think about the future development of the industry.

In the past, the main ways of spreading music were charting and media introductions. After an artist releases a new song, he or she will give it to the agency for distribution. The agency will then push it to various radio stations and charts to let the audience know.

Now this method has been replaced by user sharing and dissemination, and the influence of users is much greater than in the CD era. In the past, no radio station, charts or record companies could reach hundreds of millions of Internet users.

It’s different now, NetEase Cloud Music can cover hundreds of millions of users. This means that if you can produce excellent work on this platform, your influence will be many times greater than before.

Changes in the way music is disseminated and interacted with will also change the profit distribution of the entire music industry, thereby causing changes in the entire industry.

To sum up, the essence of demand is: to let users hear the songs they like .

The competitive situation in the industry is: competitors are good at music libraries, but cannot find good music.

The future of the industry is that the way music is disseminated and profits are distributed will change.

When these three points intersect, you will find that they all point to one question: how to let users discover the songs they like to listen to?

Since the key goal is to let users hear their favorite songs, how does NetEase achieve this?

AI algorithm allows songs to be played in different ways

1. To match the user's interests

Through investigation, we found that among the millions of songs in the music library, only 100,000 are actually listened to by users. From a resource perspective, this is a complete waste. Therefore, it is necessary to match users' interests through algorithm recommendations.

1. We need to use communication as an amplifier to build a network structure for people to share with each other.

We need to create a product that truly connects music and users, allowing users to listen to more songs they like, rather than letting the music library lie there quietly and letting users only listen to songs they already know.

Let users hear their favorite songs

Around this goal, NetEase Cloud Music defined the product functions: UGC, personalization and social. UGC means that we need to make playlists, personalization means that we need to make recommendation algorithms, and social means that we need to make comments, follow relationships, etc.

Playlist: The Core Sword of Growth

In terms of growth, product features have become a sharp sword for NetEase Music's growth.

Cloud Music regards playlist as its core function and is the first product with playlist as its core, because we believe that user UGC sharing is the main direction of future development.

First of all, focus all your attention on creating a UGC cycle. Many users who like to make playlists have come to Cloud Music, because for NetEase Cloud Music, playlists are the core function, and the playlists made by users can get maximum exposure and respect.

When users create playlists on Cloud Music, they follow the traditional music classification methods, such as: rock playlist, folk playlist, pop music playlist, etc. This period of time passes quickly. It turns out that users are much smarter than expected behavior. Users gradually started to create playlists for homework, running, daydreaming, driving, and sleeping, integrating playlists into every aspect of their lives.

NetEase's algorithm is tailored to each individual and offers the ultimate in recommendations. It determines your style of music based on the types of songs you have listened to in the past and the labels.

As mentioned above, the core position of music giants lies in the number of their music libraries, and this is also the advantage that can consolidate their position.

Looking back, users simply cannot listen to all of such a powerful music library, and may even be able to only listen to a few familiar songs on repeat. NetEase's cloud music recommendation algorithm breaks the traditional mechanism of people searching for music in depth and vertically, and turns it into music searching for more suitable people. NetEase Music’s daily recommendations can completely hit or even match the tag types that most users are familiar with.

Users prefer to watch content

Before QQ Music started to post reviews, past market research reports said that only 5% of users read reviews.

Now, the official data of Cloud Music shows that 50% of users read comments, which has increased tenfold in a few years. NetEase’s product is actually very simple, it’s just one comment and one like. The comments satisfy users’ psychological desire to achieve resonance through music. Human memory is fragmented, and resonance is to connect some memory fragments together and mobilize previous memories.

Such a simple product function is to allow users to post comments. Each comment corresponding to each song has the value of a set of resonance numbers. This has become a habit for many people to like NetEase Cloud Music and stay online for a long time.

NetEase screen

The growth of NetEase’s screen-sweeping content is not always unique.

Every time NetEase Cloud Music is screen-sweeping, it stimulates the inner satisfaction and show-off of human nature. Every screen-sweeping event can bring in a fresh group of users, and this advantage of frequent screen-sweeping events is a unique advantage of the NetEase family. UGC comments + AI algorithms have become the core means to leverage NetEase's growth. Cooperation + cross-border cooperation has become NetEase's means of winning the hearts of users, and 2B cooperation may be NetEase's best opportunity to monetize.

"2017 NetEase Cloud Music User Annual Listening Report" H5:

"2017 NetEase Cloud Music User Annual Listening Report" H5 is part of NetEase Cloud Music's New Year plan. Through the 2017 music "Footprints", users can recall the days when they were accompanied by music.

How many songs have you listened to in total? Which song do you listen to the most? What kind of music do you enjoy? NetEase Cloud Music even remembers some subtle details, such as which day you played the song on repeat the most. This feeling of always accompanying users with warmth has inspired netizens to share.

NetEase Cloud Music launched the "2018, See Yourself" theme offline:

In Beijing Tuanjiehu subway station, you can see a "mirror corridor" printed with music reviews. Most of the music reviews on the mirror use "you" and "me" as keywords, which makes passers-by feel involved and resonates with them.

The climax of the resonance that NetEase set off in Hangzhou in March 2017:

Cross-border cooperation with Nongfu Spring:

With 600 million bottles of Nongfu Spring Le bottles, NetEase Cloud Music has gained the attention of mainstream users through its channel advantages in major cities, especially lower-tier cities, while expanding the brand's visibility to a larger extent, allowing users to move to lower-tier cities and increasing user growth.

Summarize

The algorithm recommendation mechanism, which is tailored to each individual, turns the traditional music library into the one that understands you best. A diverse playlist, a playlist based on interests and common hobbies. Rich UGC comments showcase the most resonant content. We have a professional screen-swiping team, and every screen-swiping is a roar from the users. It is not a single-operation team; collaboration and cross-border cooperation enable the product to penetrate the market quickly.

Source: Post-95s Talking About Technology