Content Operations: How to achieve sustainable growth through content?

This article uses four steps to help newbies in enterprise WeChat operations quickly establish a set of indicator systems. Achieve sustained growth through content with zero capital investment. enjoy~

I saw a joke online: "An operation friend complained that his boss often forwarded him 100,000+ articles and those flashy H5s on WeChat, and then told him: You should also make one. The boss ignored the fan base, self-media attributes, communication and promotion, technology and capital investment issues, and just said, "Others can do this with one article, so what's the point of you only having a few hundred readers a day?"

This joke is funny and true. Perhaps there are natural differences in content genes between personal self-media and corporate new media. Therefore, under various restrictions, the new media operations of some companies are in a state of self-entertainment.

When in this state, business operators have an obligation to reflect on the value of their existence and operational goals. Match the goals with corresponding data indicators and make timely adjustments. This article uses four steps to help newbies in enterprise WeChat operations quickly establish a set of indicator systems. Achieve sustained growth through content with zero capital investment.

1. Mapping of goals and indicators

Some students who are new to operations will go to the backstage to monitor the operational data every day, but they are not clear about the criteria for weighing the quality of the data and the horizontal comparison. Therefore, a reasonable indicator system can enable operators to have a clear understanding and remain calm.

In the early stage, goals are matched with indicators, and in the later stage, goals are verified and monitored through indicators. Content, as a carrier, is like a channel between the two.

The mapping relationship between goals, content and indicators is as follows:

The mapping relationship between goals, content and indicators

2. Quickly locate indicators

The ultimate goal of enterprise WeChat operations is nothing more than serving corporate brands, corporate products and corporate profits. The way to quickly locate indicators in the early stage is to clarify the mapping relationship between goals and indicators according to the principle of minimum feasibility and establish a mind map.

Note: This step is mainly to help us focus quickly and organize our thoughts. There is no need to consider too much about the rigor and comprehensiveness of the indicators. After sorting out the information, you can discuss it with the operations team, because this step is written to allow everyone to make suggestions.

It's roughly a picture like this

This has two benefits:

1. Target matching indicators quickly output a full picture of operations and establish a global perspective;
2. It serves as an outline to guide the formulation of subsequent indicators, so as not to deviate from the goals when going into details.

3. Refinement of indicators

Before formally refining the indicators, be sure to review the fan base to confirm the current stage. Under this premise, the indicators can be divided into three categories: user acquisition, content quality evaluation indicators, and content dissemination indicators.

1. User acquisition indicators

Attracting new users is an indicator of user growth. Here we mean the situation from the perspective of content alone, regardless of activities or other special scenarios. Each release is considered a content promotion.

(1) How to choose the time span indicator for new customer acquisition statistics?

In the early stages of operation, the statistical time span can be smaller, with the number of articles or weeks as units. If it has been operating for a period of time, you can use the month dimension (the latter is recommended because there are more regular historical data and it is more reliable).

(2) What method is used to predict growth?

Here we use regression analysis to predict how fan growth will change over time. Take monthly data as an example: import historical monthly data into Excel and look at the pattern presented by the trend line between the number of fans and time (month). The closer the R-squared value is to 1, the more correlated the two are.

As shown in the example below, based on the trend line, time and the number of fans are linearly correlated. R square value = 0.9734. With the help of linear equation, we can get the y value and predict the fan growth value for the next month as: 511.36*9-791.61=3811.

Example

1. Content Indicators

The content indicators themselves can be divided into two dimensions: quantity and quality. The quantitative dimension is differentiated according to different columns of new media, and can be sorted out according to the weight and output volume of each column. The results can simultaneously assess the overview of each column and the contribution of the authors.

The quality dimension is divided into the following two parts:

(1) Expert scoring system

Invite 2-10 industry experts to rate the quality of the content and give some constructive suggestions. In order to unify the corresponding standards, we can discuss the evaluation dimensions with experts (which need to be personalized based on factors such as the attributes of the operating account, professional direction, and the overall level of the contributor).

Example

(2) Bonus points

The bonus items are mainly considered from the perspective of operators. Content review and editing usually takes up a lot of time of operators. In order to standardize submissions, common problems in content review and editing can be put in front, such as requiring contributors to provide cover images, submit standardized manuscripts according to typesetting standards, provide high-quality illustrations, etc., and give corresponding bonus points to improve the efficiency of review and editing.

1. Content promotion indicators

(1) Basic items (Weighted WeChat basic indicators)

Set the data collection range and select the 3-5 indicators that you are most concerned about. The baseline and score are established based on the average of historical data, and the total score of each indicator of the basic item is obtained after weighting. like:

• Basic score selection: reading volume, sharing volume, and viewing volume;
• Weight division: reading volume baseline*0.4+sharing volume baseline*0.4+viewing volume baseline*0.2.

As new data is added, the baseline for achievement rates > 50% needs to be adjusted based on the new mean.

(2) Bonus items (customized weighting of indicator items)

The bonus items take into account some minor indicators, distribution through other channels, milestone nodes and other indicators of less importance. It is recommended to divide the original data into three sections for scoring:

• Milestone rewards for reading volume: Based on the original data value, three target intervals are set to mark the corresponding scores. Once the content indicator performance reaches one of the target intervals, it is considered that the content has reached a milestone node for the indicator item and will receive additional bonus points.
• Collection volume: Collection behavior can trigger secondary or multiple readings for users, thereby improving user retention. Generally, long-length and informative content has a large collection volume, which is also a recognition of the quality of the content by readers. Therefore, they are listed separately and divided into intervals for extra points.
• Main distribution channels: Distribution channels and reprinting are channels for expanding the scope of content dissemination. If the company's new media is dominated by WeChat, the distribution channels can be divided into a large-scale interval for scoring according to the corresponding scoring mechanism of the channel.
• Reward: The reward depends on the importance of this income to the company. Content operators generally do not care too much about content rewards and can set a lower weight.

IV. Verification and Monitoring of Indicators

Based on the above three steps, we can obtain a so-called "universal formula". After each piece of content is produced, according to the universal formula of this operating system, repetitive tasks that require calculations are handed over to computers for processing. In this way, we don’t have to monitor the daily changes in a certain data or look at the total score, freeing up time to think about finding the source of the problem and higher-level issues.

V. Summary

Of course, there is no perfect metric. The indicator system is not fixed. It is dynamically adjusted based on corporate strategy, new media attributes, current stage, fan base, etc. What is introduced in this article is actually a way of thinking to solve the problem, and our efforts are just to continuously approach the optimal state.

Source: Design Gallery 84