Product Analysis Report丨How does WeChat Reading retain users?

I have always believed that reading is a solitary thing. How can you not feel lonely when reading?

So I wonder if social networking + reading is a false proposition. But on second thought, that may not be the case.

I couldn't help but wonder: Why do I think reading is a lonely thing?

1. For most people, a quiet environment may be needed for reading.
2. Perhaps the reason many people first fell in love with reading was because they had no close friends or could not find friends with whom they had common topics.
3. It's hard to find someone who reads the same book as you, or has some thoughts about the same book, or even can read the same book as you.
4. There may be very few people who love reading.

But if you think about it carefully, social networking + reading does not seem to conflict, and it cleverly solves these problems:

1. Reading requires a quiet environment, but combining reading and socializing does not mean being noisy. You can read a book on your phone by yourself and then exchange ideas with others.
2. Social networking + reading is a way to help you find friends: Maybe you are an introverted and sensitive person or you can’t find topics to talk about in life, but social networking + reading can help you find topics. And it’s not awkward chat, it’s an in-depth discussion on a certain topic. In addition, people who don’t know that each other likes reading in real life may get to know each other’s hobbies through this, which is conducive to building emotional connections.
3. Reading + socializing brings together people who read the same book, so there is no such thing as having trouble finding people reading the same book.
4. Although there are few people who love reading, there are actually many people who read.

People who read can be roughly divided into two categories: one is those who show off their knowledge, and the other is those who please themselves. And those who please themselves can be divided into two types: one is those who move themselves, and the other is those who truly acquire knowledge.

With the above understanding, what is the purpose of social interaction + reading?

It should allow others to truly gain something or understand the knowledge in a book more deeply and systematically. Or you can use the platform to showcase your own achievements or huge knowledge reserves, or even just casually read other people's thoughts, methods, and book recommendations.

Based on these considerations, I made some analysis on WeChat Reading:

1. Product Framework

Product main function structure diagram

"WeChat Reading" mainly arranges its product architecture around the reading + social model.

There are four main tabs: Discover, Bookshelf, Ideas, and My. Commonly used bookstore options are distributed in "Discover", and there are two other main interfaces for book introduction and book text.

The user-facing functions of "WeChat Reading" are mainly reading, commenting, ideas, and push activities. The following usage paths can be extracted for these functions:

2. Market Analysis

In recent years, domestic entertainment consumption has been upgraded and people's spiritual needs have been increasing. As a typical representative of Internet content, mobile reading has been steadily increasing in scale. At the same time, policy inclinations have given digital reading huge potential and development opportunities in the wave of cultural revitalization.

According to the 43rd "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet", as of December 2018, the number of Internet users in my country reached 829 million, and the number of mobile Internet users in my country reached 817 million.

The professionalism and verticality of content production continue to deepen, high-quality content has become the core competitiveness of each platform, and the development potential of mobile reading is very large.

As shown in the figure, the user scale of China's mobile reading industry continues to grow. In 2018, the market size reached 16.26 billion, and the user scale reached 370 million. It is expected to continue to grow in 2019.

But at the same time, with the continuous development and exploration of digital reading, the market has begun to enter a period of slowing growth, and finding new growth entrances has become increasingly important.

From the data in the figure below, we can see that the number of users of "WeChat Reading" has been steadily increasing in the past year, with 10.57 million installations.

Compared with the 817 million mobile Internet users, there is still considerable room for development.

The proportion of added value of my country's cultural industries continues to increase, and people's willingness to pay for knowledge is becoming stronger and stronger. A huge market is being built for users to improve themselves or relieve anxiety, and reading is a very feasible behavior to achieve this goal.

"WeChat Reading" has huge opportunities in this regard.

In summary, we can see that the scale of mobile phone users in my country is huge, and they have a strong desire for spiritual consumption. The reading market has huge development potential and prospects, especially in the areas of improving digital reading and knowledge payment; but it also faces the difficulty of insufficient growth in the future, so finding new forms of growth entry is becoming a current opportunity and challenge.

3. User Analysis

Product Positioning

The product positioning of "WeChat Reading" is an interest community related to books. Discover good books and share your reading experience through communication with friends.

The slogan is "Let reading no longer be lonely", aiming to build a good reading community for users.

"WeChat Reading" mainly includes three business areas: reading, listening to books, and high-quality public accounts. Serving users who like to read, and interacting socially through high-quality ideas and friendships.

User Profile

The proportion of male users of WeChat Reading is far higher than that of female users.

In terms of age distribution, users aged 25-30 account for the largest proportion, 34.12%; followed by 31-35 years old, accounting for 32.59%; users under 24 years old account for 23.37%. Among them, people over 35 years old account for a very small proportion.

It can be seen from this that the user group tends to be younger, mainly young people, with those born in the 2000s, 1990s and 1980s accounting for the majority; at the same time, the number of male users is far higher than that of female users.

Geographically, users are mostly concentrated in coastal provinces such as Guangdong, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Hebei. The economies in these regions are relatively developed, and people have more cultural and spiritual needs and a desire to develop themselves. They also hope to achieve spiritual enrichment by making more friends through reading who share the same language and interests as them.

Through visits to some friends and some exchanges with users within the product, I learned that WeChat Reading has the following types of users:

User 1: Postgraduate student, male, 24 years old. I am more literary and have a lot of free time, so I hope to improve myself through reading. He has a wide range of interests, reading novels, social sciences, and history, and he also sometimes consults professional books. When reading, I often write down my thoughts to exercise my thinking and also to tell others that I am reading.

User 2: Professional, male, 35 years old. I work as a technician in a company related to automobile production. My income is decent, but I am not satisfied with the status quo and I long to achieve financial freedom. I often read some financial and psychological books, and occasionally read popular novels. I spend a long time reading, but because my main purpose is to improve myself, I don’t often express my thoughts.

User 3: Self-employed, male, 31 years old. Run a pet shop, hoping to gain more business knowledge and expertise. The books I read are mainly business management and some pet-related books. I read infrequently and rarely express my thoughts.

User 4: A person from the publishing industry, female, 27 years old. Because I work in a publishing company, I often read all kinds of books, including humanities and social sciences, literature and art, as well as various currently popular novels. I have many comments and thoughts, and I often rate the books I have read. There are many books in my "Bookshelf" and "Recent Reading".

User 5: Freelancer, female, 23 years old. I just graduated and my main job is writing novels. There are many reading apps on my phone, and the books I read are mainly novels and historical themes. I spend an average amount of time on WeChat Reading, but the frequency is not high. There are a lot of books in my “Recent Readings”, but I seldom write down my thoughts or comments.

After summarizing my friends' usage habits and my own experience, I found that there are several usage scenarios:

1. See what your friends are reading
2. Read the books you haven't finished yet
3. I am short of books. I am looking for books to read in the bookstore.
4. If you have nothing to do on the subway or bus, read a book or listen to a book.
5. I recently saw a recommendation for a book. Let's take a look at the ratings and other people's comments on this book.
6. Check out the reading rankings and compare with your friends
7. Physical books are a bit expensive, check out the APP
8. Participate in team card drawing activities and share book giving activities
9. There are only a few minutes left before the time can be exchanged for book coins. Make up for these few minutes.

IV. Operational Analysis

Current operating methods

There are three main ways to operate WeChat Reading: team drawing cards, sharing books/getting cards, buy one get one free, and exchanging book coins for time.

Team card drawing

Team card drawing is a very good activity that can effectively attract new users and promote activation. The number is large and the impact is wide. One person can lead four people to participate in the activity at once. It is a good activity.

However, you may need to post to Moments frequently, which may cause your friends to feel disgusted and ignore you.

Share to get books/cards

It can make users feel a sense of gain. Just by posting on WeChat Moments, they can get a book or a few days of reading experience.

But the person who gets the book may not cherish it, and the reading experience of a few days may be effective at the beginning, but may be useless later.

So it seems that the activity energy is very limited. Few people are willing to post to Moments frequently just for two days of reading cards or a book, and even if they do, they will delete it quickly .

In addition, I don’t know whether it was intentional or unintentional by the design team, but when sharing, even if you just open the published page without sending it out, you can still receive it successfully, so it doesn’t seem to make much sense.

Give One Get One

Personally, I feel that buy-one-get-one-free activities are very effective in attracting new customers and promoting activation: because the people to whom the gifts are given are generally close or people who have common hobbies, and are more targeted.

It is not as aimless and easy to cause disgust as sending messages to friends. It is easy for one person to lead another person into a reading environment. It is a good point-to-point model .

Time to exchange book coins

Exchanging reading time for book coins is a good encouragement for people who read frequently: on the one hand, it can help book lovers get the capital to buy books; on the other hand, when earning book coins, the reading time can be increased, which promotes the improvement of ranking. It is a two-way encouragement method.

However, the effect may only be good in the initial stage of user entry. In the long run, it is difficult to mobilize the enthusiasm of users and it is difficult to use it to promote activation in the long run.

Relying solely on activities such as giving away books, cards, and book coins may be able to attract users quickly, but it is difficult to retain users for a long time.

This format is too simple, giving users limited expectations and making it difficult for users to retain for a long time. Therefore, there are a large number of friends on the reading time ranking list whose reading time is 0 for a long time . Moreover, products like "reading" should be content-driven rather than simply giving away benefits.

Therefore, finding new forms of content that can truly attract users is of utmost importance.

At present, "WeChat Reading" does not have any content that can allow users to spontaneously attract new users, or allow new users to enter spontaneously through word of mouth.

Now, retaining users should not be based on competition from similar apps.

As mentioned earlier, the current Internet market is dominated by short and fast content, with short videos, Weibo, Zhihu, WeChat accounts, and other short and fast content flooding users' mobile phones. Reading apps with long and lengthy content are difficult to attract users.

Therefore, I think that we should accurately position reading apps based on their characteristics, attracting those specific users who love reading or have the desire to read, and then help users develop a habit of reading so that they fall in love with reading again .

Supplementary operation methods

The main factor that attracts users is anticipation. In other words, what do users expect to get from this product, whether it is truly beneficial to them or can make them stick with it.

Most reading products are literary in nature, and their users are mainly students, working people, and some people who hope to improve themselves through them.

Therefore, the positioning of this product should be a literary and high-end product. What users desire is knowledge, self-improvement or capital for showing off.

Based on these characteristics, we can help users use "WeChat Reading" and develop good reading habits.

Based on the above characteristics, I propose the following modes of operation:

①Media publicity:

Convey positive values ​​to users and tell target users that they can get what they expect on WeChat Reading. This is a product that can benefit them.

At the same time , it sends a signal that reading is a high-end behavior, sets a threshold, and allows users to raise their expectations and actively enter "WeChat Reading".

Use various media to affirm the positive role of reading, and work together with other media to promote "WeChat Reading".

To divert users from time-consuming and unproductive products such as short videos, and attract them to reading products, we can cooperate with cultural reading programs and promote them with advertisements, such as "One Thousand and One Nights", "Along the Way of Books", "The Reader" and other programs.

②Offline promotion:

Tell users to squeeze out time to read, for example: while waiting for a bus or on the subway, reading before going to bed, reading during normal rest times, etc.

Set up "WeChat Reading" promotional advertisements in subways, bus stations and other places, and make personalized designs: set up QR codes at the platforms, and by scanning the codes, a book exclusively for you can be randomly recommended and given to you as a gift, giving users surprises and making them feel respected and affirmed.

③University publicity:

Students are the main target group for reading. If we can gain the support of the student group, we will naturally be able to obtain a large amount of traffic, and there will still be great expectations in the future, which is conducive to cultivating the reading habits of the entire social group.

Therefore, you can create an activity station in the school's reading club, provide funds to organize related activities, and sponsor various knowledge, cultural, reading and even technology activities within the school. This will quickly increase the popularity of "WeChat Reading".

Moreover, its popularity among young groups will be conducive to the rapid growth of "WeChat Reading".

④Joint promotion:

Cooperate with other similar products for acquiring knowledge, such as "Get" and "ONE".

⑤Bookstore promotion:

Carry out offline store promotions in major bookstores and hold joint events with popular bookstores to build momentum for "reading" behavior.

Launch a "WeChat Reading" co-branded reading card, which should be able to enjoy discounts on "WeChat Reading" as well as in physical bookstores. It can even be launched in a limited edition to increase its collection value.

This will not only boost the bookstore's sales and popularity, but also promote "WeChat Reading" and enhance people's reading concepts. It can be said to achieve three goals at one stroke and achieve a win-win situation.

⑥ Enhanced scoring:

Strengthen the concept of the WeChat reading rating system. Now when people mention ratings, they always mention Douban. In fact, " WeChat Reading" also has a "rating" function, which can be built into another authoritative rating system recognized by readers .

Of course, this requires a larger user base and a trusted rating system. The operation of the rating system should be strengthened to prevent malicious behavior such as score manipulation. At the same time, excellent reviews are recommended, making it a platform for user communication and creation.

⑦Optimize comments:

In the "ratings and reviews" area, excellent book introduction reviews should be pinned to the top so that users can see them first and quickly understand the main content of the book, giving users the feeling of quickly gaining a lot of knowledge in a short period of time.

Or if they are curious about the book's introduction and are motivated to read the entire book , you can add a "picture" function to the reviews. It is helpful to construct mind maps or character relationship diagrams, so that users can understand more quickly and easily, giving them a sense of achievement or expectation. At the same time, creators of excellent introductions can also gain a sense of accomplishment and recognition from them.

⑧Mascot:

Creating a "WeChat Reading" mascot will help narrow the distance with readers and also prepare for future peripheral products .

You can even create events where users can design their own mascots. Then an evaluation will be conducted and the best creators will be selected and rewarded, and all participants will be given a book as an encouragement.

This will not only allow creators to invest and gain a sense of accomplishment, but also help promote "WeChat Reading".

⑨Push by chapter:

Today's users focus on short, flat and fast pace. In fact, the book the user is reading can be pushed to him/her daily by chapter, so that the user can read in a shorter time and avoid the situation where some users have to find large blocks of time to read due to obsessive-compulsive disorder or sense of ritual.

This way you can make more effective use of fragmented time to learn knowledge. Dividing it into segments and pushing it to readers every day will help them develop a habit of reading.

⑩Copyright introduction:

"WeChat Reading" should strengthen its accumulation of copyright.

In terms of content, copyright is a very important influencing factor. If the operation is good, users can tolerate some copyright defects, such as NetEase Cloud Music. But we should not put all our trust on this aspect, we should strive to obtain as many copyrights as possible.

After all, the social attribute of reading is not that strong, or in other words, the social attribute relies on the existence of books, so the influence of book libraries on users is still relatively large.

At the same time, we should sign more authors, or cultivate some authors within our own platform, and strengthen the promotion and training of these authors. Unique star authors can attract users and form barriers.

V. Functional Analysis

Bookstore

Most of the reading apps’ bookstores exist as a separate tab.

WeChat Reading is different. It is placed at the top of "Discover" and does not have a particularly obvious presence in the "Bookshelf". Instead, it exists at the bottom in the form of a "+".

I guess the reason for this setting may be to create an immersive reading environment for users, so that people who just want to read can get straight to the point without being disturbed by other things, and the interface looks very simple.

But I have looked at the homepages of many friends, and their performance is not as expected - many people have read a lot of books recently, but there are only a few books on their bookshelves, and even fewer books they have finished reading. This shows that users often go to the bookstore to look for new books when they are halfway through reading a book or entering the "bookshelf".

In addition, when I first used "WeChat Reading", I spent a long time searching for the entrance to the "Book City" but couldn't find it because the location of the book city was not obvious.

Moreover, if you have to go to the "Discover" page or scroll to the bottom of the bookshelf every time you want to find a book, it may not be very convenient for users.

So I think we can make the bookstore more eye-catching without disrupting the existing layout, and set up an entrance to the "bookstore" in the bookshelf, as shown below:

Recommended for you

The algorithm that recommends you in "Discover" doesn't seem to be able to accurately locate the target.

When I first started using WeChat Reading, the recommendations in “Bookstore” and “Recommended for You” were always online novels.

Moreover, for some books, I only clicked on and read a few pages, or even accidentally only read the introduction, but the algorithm continued to make recommendations based on these books , which made users feel disgusted.

I speculate that there are two reasons for this situation:

① Novels are very attractive and can increase the user's usage time

②Because books are not as short as music and videos and cannot be produced in sufficient quantity, algorithms can only be built based on the limited clues provided by users.

But I think recommendations should be based on quality. Some readers just don’t read novels or online novels, and they won’t read them even if you keep recommending them.

So when readers have not read online novels for a long time, you can try to recommend some recently popular published novels, or more literary and unpopular novels.

In addition, recommendations should be made based on how long the reader spends reading the book , rather than assuming that the reader will like the book just because they have skimmed a few pages.

A percentage of flipping should be set: for example, 5%, or according to the number of pages read; such as 30 pages, or different recommendations can be made based on the thickness of the book; for example, when the book is less than 300 pages, a recommendation is made when 10% has been read; when the book is over 300 pages, a recommendation is made when 5% has been read.

Or make recommendations based on search history.

At the same time, users should be able to choose not to be interested in the books listed as "recommended for you" on the "Discover" page.

For example, when you "long press" a book, options such as "Not interested" and "No longer recommend similar books" will pop up, giving users the right to make their own choices.

In addition, the recommended categories in the bookstore can be DIY according to your needs, as shown below:

When you click "My Categories", you will enter the "Categories" interface and be prompted to "Click 'Edit' to set your favorite categories."

When you click "Edit", readers can choose the category they want to see first on the bookstore homepage.

PS: Personally, I think the interface of "WeChat Reading" is relatively simple and refreshing, giving people a sense of luxury, and its main promotion is "carefully polished reading experience."

So I think that when making recommendations, we should try to choose some well-received and high-quality books. Although there are a large number of books and it is difficult to select, you should at least choose those with clearer covers, rather than the covers that are almost coded like the one shown below.

Page turning function

During use, I found that there is a great "underline" function that allows me to mark my favorite paragraphs and exchange ideas with book friends.

However, the "underline" function seems to have some defects. I found that if the "underline" is at the end of a page, it cannot mark the second half of the sentence. I can only mark the first half of the sentence first, and then mark the second half, as shown in the left picture below.

I don't know if it's not set or I just didn't find it. Whatever the reason, I think a more eye-catching "strike-through page turn" button should be set to make it more convenient for users to use and not to disgust users with obsessive-compulsive disorder, as shown in the right picture below.

Hide thoughts feature

Throughout my reading, I had no idea that the "Ideas" feature could be hidden.

Until one day I saw someone in the comments saying that it could be turned off, but it took me a long time to find it. It turned out to be in the "More" position in the upper right corner, as shown in the left picture below.

And this function button is not found in other locations. But some other settings can be found in the first button, as shown in the right picture below.

I don’t know why “Hide Thoughts” is not placed in the menu corresponding to the first button. I guess it may be deliberately placed in a more hidden position to strengthen the social attributes of WeChat Reading, or it may be that the “Hide Thoughts” function is not parallel to these four functions.

But I think the "hide message" function should be placed in a more obvious place and users should not think that they are being deliberately deceived.

And since the "hide message" function is designed, users should be able to find it instead of deliberately hiding it from users. Otherwise, there is no need to set it up .

So I think the presence of "hidden ideas" should be enhanced, such as putting it in the menu corresponding to the first button (as shown in the left picture below), or releasing a separate button (as shown in the right picture below).

I personally prefer the second setting - first, it solves the problem of not being listed alongside the other four functions, and second, it allows users to find the "Hide Ideas" function faster.

In fact, I don’t think there is any need to worry that the obvious setting of this button will reduce the frequency of users checking comments.

Because even if this function is not set, some users may not check the comments again after reading them several times; while other users may not close the comments even if they find this button.

In short, those who should watch will still watch, and those who don’t know how to watch will still not watch .

Moreover, based on my own experience during use, the setting of the barrage button in the video, and the theories I saw in the book, placing the "hidden message" in an obvious and easy-to-operate position will actually increase the user's frequency of use.

"Dynamic Hide"

I noticed that WeChat Reading has set up "private reading" for some users who do not want to make their reading content public.

However, if you comment on a book, it will be visible in "Thoughts", but you cannot be sure whether the thoughts in "Private Reading" will be displayed in your friends' updates .

If it can be displayed, the "private reading" setting will appear very awkward; if it cannot be displayed, but the user seems unsure, it will make the user worried, which will not only reduce the user's comments, but also make the user experience poor.

Furthermore, if it cannot be displayed, but the user wants others to see his or her thoughts while "reading privately", the user cannot be sure, which may force the user to cancel "reading privately".

Therefore, I suggest adding a "hide/show" button to tell users whether the "ideas" they wrote are displayed in their friends' "dynamics".

Daily Reading

Through interviews with some book lovers and years of reading experience, I found that readers actually look forward to finishing a book.

But the seemingly endless ending always puts them in trouble, or they are always too busy to read, or feel uncomfortable halfway through reading, which leads them to give up halfway.

Therefore, you can help them set a goal to remind them to read daily, tell them that if they make a little progress every day, they will eventually finish reading the whole book and gain a sense of accomplishment. Tell them roughly how long it will take them to read it, based on the word count.

The whole book can be divided into several parts by chapter or even section, and pushed daily. Readers can choose to push or not.

At the same time, "WeChat Reading" can push the books that the user has read most recently by default. Of course , users should be able to cancel daily push notifications to avoid users being annoyed by frequent push notifications.

When users complete a part of the reading task, they can be reminded whether they want to do the next part of the task.

Discover page

WeChat Reading uses the "Discover" page as its homepage. The format is very novel, and each page has only one theme.

However, there is too little content to display. Perhaps the designer's original intention was to make the page more concise. But it does not give people such a feeling, instead it seems thin and lengthy .

Although the theme of each page of cards is very focused, the daily updated friend dynamics, daily recommendations, SENSE, recommended for you, free books, friend rankings and other accumulation of various activities can easily make people confused and feel very messy.

Therefore, it is recommended to divide the "Discover" page into three groups of options, namely friend updates, daily recommendations, and thematic Q&A. They are still displayed in the form of cards, but the themes are clarified and centralized so that people will not feel cluttered.

①Friends’ dynamics

The first group of options is friend status. You can put friend-related activities such as friends’ reading, weekly rankings, team card drawing, etc. in this group of options. At the same time, your friends' recent comments and ideas can be displayed in this set of tabs.

②Daily Recommendations

There is a "Book List" feature in the "Me" tab, but it doesn't seem to be actively promoted.

I think the book list function has great potential. A large number of people actually have a habit of collecting books. Although I read very little, the saying "buying books is like a mountain falling, reading books is like pulling a thread" is true.

Therefore , the function of book lists can actually be extended, which can not only extend the user's usage, but also help some people summarize thematic reading and bring together books of the same type.

Moreover, WeChat Reading is actually already running a book list activity - the daily recommended "SENSE", which is very similar to a book list, but it is not promoted as a book list.

Therefore, some popular book lists can be recommended daily. You can put "SENSE", "Book List" and "Recommended for you" into this option group.

③Topic Q&A

It is really useful to read the comments and some ideas interspersed in the interface, which can provide good solutions and expression of ideas.

But this may be far from enough for a social networking app, and the scattered comments and ideas are often disorganized and unsystematic, and there is no way to carry out point-to-point precision attacks.

Often a comment appears in a long paragraph, and its lack of focus makes it difficult for people to communicate and resonate.

So I suggest a Q&A format for a particular book—some people asking questions and others answering them.

This can not only help others solve their doubts, but also satisfy some people who want to show their talents; it is also conducive to interaction and communication among friends and finding friends with similar interests.

Questions and answers should be allowed to be conducted in the form of text and pictures to facilitate the sorting out of character relationships or thought processes and to make it easier for others to understand.

Of course, this kind of question-and-answer activity is prone to spamming, abuse and ridicule.

Therefore, management should be strengthened, and questions and answers that are not related to the book and some abusive and sarcastic content should be deleted in a timely manner to create a good community environment.

Summarize

There are many reading products on the market now, so I can't help but think: Why are readers willing to come to "WeChat Reading"? In other words, what can "WeChat Reading" provide to users?

I think it's probably the following three points:

① Freshness: Relying on the advantages of WeChat, it has set off a trend in the circle of friends. Many friends use it because they saw related activities of "WeChat Reading" in the circle of friends and felt fresh.

② Sense of luxury: The "carefully polished reading experience" featured by "WeChat Reading" and the literary and artistic attributes of reading, coupled with the ability to be ranked on the reading rankings, can give people a sense of luxury.

③ Sense of anticipation: Users hope to gain something from reading. Whether spiritually or materially, the competition in length gives users the pleasure of competition; at the same time, the setting of reading cards and exchanging time for book coins allows users to read a large number of books for free, as well as exchange ideas, which makes people have the urge to create, and undoubtedly gives users a strong sense of achievement and expectation.

These can indeed attract a lot of users and keep some of them.

But these alone may not be enough to retain a large number of users. It has been mentioned many times in the previous article that the "short and fast" tendency of the Internet is not conducive to the development of reading products. How to cultivate users' reading habits or attract target users is a very important issue.

The theme of "WeChat Reading" - "social + reading" - is undoubtedly very novel.

But we have to admit that there is still a long way to go. The length of books and the time-consuming nature of writing mean that they are destined to not become popular as quickly as other products. Comments and ideas also appear scattered due to their length. In terms of form, there are seriously insufficient opportunities for users to communicate, and there is also insufficient motivation for users to create, making it difficult to form a good thematic community.

Although relying on the import of WeChat friends can help to a certain extent.

But to be honest, after looking at the friend lists of several friends, the number of monthly active users is pitifully low. Most people just want to see the novelty and excitement, and retention is seriously insufficient.

"WeChat Reading" still has a long way to go on the road of "social +". I hope to continue to improve and make better products.

Source: No Ink