Five key directions for new media professionals in 2019

WeChat has quietly revamped its version recently!

The function of "Like" in the lower right corner of the public account article has changed to "Reading", and only the expression has been adjusted. WeChat officials said, "We hope that everyone can use "Reading" without pressure to share articles and interact with friends more easily. ”

But while "relieving stress", it also weakens everyone's attitude towards the article. Will the value of taking a look at it be reduced?

Once again, I am worried about the number of readers. In the WeChat ecosystem in 2019:

What content should we create?

Where to find new hope for traffic?

How to realize the commercial value of content more efficiently?

What will be the future of new media people?

01. Getting better even when “downward”

In 2018, the overall opening rate of WeChat subscription accounts and service accounts dropped precipitously . In terms of user growth, the overall new addition rate was 1.84% and the unfollowing rate was 2.36%. The net increase rate was negative, which means that everyone was losing fans.

However, for accounts with more than 1 million followers, the opening rate may be relatively lower. But because the more people there are, the larger the "pool" will be, and the new increase rate and net increase rate are positive, so the big accounts will always be strong.

△Data source: Wei Xiaobao

This is the development trend of things. The Matthew effect has been verified countless times. The polarization of WeChat has been inevitable since its development. With information overload, the content produced by large accounts is of higher quality and more timely, which is the inevitable choice of users . Therefore, in 2019, new media professionals should pay more attention to social responsibility and subject consciousness, produce high-quality original content, and find ways to obtain new traffic.

According to the data from Weimeng Media: the changes in the total usage time of popular industries in China's mobile Internet in 2018 show that the number of users of self-media platforms mainly based on short videos has increased rapidly. Short videos will be a new front that new media people will pay attention to.

Although the usage time of instant messaging platforms, led by WeChat, has declined, it is still about 4 times that of other platforms. Traffic acquisition and operation under the WeChat ecosystem is still the most important direction for us new media people.

Although everyone is complaining that WeChat is becoming increasingly difficult to use, no one is willing to give up easily. After all, it is the shortest path to connect with users.

02. WeChat is still the most important position of new media

Five key directions related to new media professionals in the WeChat ecosystem in 2019 :

01. WeChat matrix + traffic integration under WeChat ecosystem

Last year, Mantou published many articles with 100,000+ and 200,000+ reading volumes, but there were probably only 2,000 to 3,000 new readers. The conversion rate of attracting new readers relying solely on the content of the articles is very low.

Therefore, in 2019, we should focus on opening up the traffic matrix under the WeChat ecosystem.

Many of us new media practitioners started out by writing articles, but few of us study the value of service accounts, mini-programs, or communities.

For example, we use copywriting classes to attract new users. The messages are sent from the subscription account. The QR code for participating in the activity is the QR code of the service account (which must be able to record user parameters). After following the service account, a small program pops up. With the help of the small program, we connect the WeChat community and Moments, and we soon have tens of thousands of new users.

Of course, this is just one of many small programs.

If there are words asking your friends to share and forward on the service account, it will be blocked if reported, but the mini program will be slightly more relaxed, encouraging everyone to innovate and explore more ways to play.

To sum up, there are actually five aspects of new traffic under the WeChat ecosystem.

Our goal has become that subscription accounts focus more on forwarding rates, service accounts focus more on user reach rates, WeChat communities focus on building community systems and user stratification, mini programs focus on opening up traffic and attracting new users, and Moments focus on sharing conversion rates.

△The functions and roles of each channel in the WeChat ecosystem.

In addition, you may also find that working for a WeChat public account is a position that requires knowledge of content, operations, and marketing, and sometimes even includes familiarity with and application of technical means. Improving operational efficiency through products and technical means is also a very important direction.

02. Diversification of content formats

Recently, the content format of many popular articles is no longer simply the traditional text and picture format, but a lot of comic strips have emerged.

Comic-style content will be more popular in the market.

Comics are more expressive than pure text content, more flexible than short videos, better at spreading, more likely to create hits, and easier to build IP.

The increasing number of popular comic content in 2018 is just the beginning. Audio and short video formats are also gradually becoming richer.

Of course, the form is also based on good topics and content. In a set of data from Penguin Intelligence and iResearch: 84.2% of users believe that depth and professionalism are the primary conditions for good content, followed by timeliness and accuracy of the content.

When industry hot topics emerge, it is critical to provide users with first-hand content through immediate analysis and answers.

Now many of our chicken soup-type public accounts may be able to incite people’s emotions very well in the short term and quickly attract a lot of users and readership, but many people just come to watch, and the public accounts themselves have no value.

Nowadays, the entire WeChat ecosystem is not only monitored from top to bottom, but users have also learned to vote with their eyes and wallets. The driving factor for 50.4% of users to pay for content for the first time is also the content quality. Those shoddy and vulgar content are abandoned.

△Data source: New List

Only content with quality, depth and professional insights can motivate users to pay and get closer to money.

03. Branding + Personal IP

The public account Uncle Mana has a very good character design. Uncle Mana is set up as a warm-hearted uncle and an emotional blogger, and 80% of the target group are women.

As a warm-hearted man, he will not ignore any woman who needs comfort. There are about 10,000 messages in the background of their account every day, and almost every one of them will be replied.

This is not something that can be done by one person alone. The entire team is working to build up this kind of personality, which also makes the user stickiness of this account very good.

If you often pay attention to Mantou Business School, you should know "Manhuohuo". Many students want to know him, but he is just our character. We hope that when you read the content of the official account, you feel that you are connected and interacting with a person. Who is willing to talk to an organization? Giving your official account personalized features will enhance users' impression of the official account. The personality can make your official account more sticky, more active, and better able to bring goods.

So, how to set up a character specifically? Our new media intermediate class has a very detailed explanation. The key point is that character setting is never as simple as giving it a name, nor is it established with simple basic information such as age, gender, and education. It must have a clear character image and a distinct personality. The more realistic the better.

For example, the character's appearance, background story, values, and even voice must all be fully set up in advance, and the character must be created like a screenwriter.

If your official account is not fought alone, you can completely obtain the characteristics of several people in the editorial department. This personality is a combination of your editorial department. This is also a way to make the personality more realistic.

04. Public domain + private domain traffic in parallel

In fact, the parallel development of public and private traffic is the combination of user thinking and marketing thinking.

Public domain traffic: WeChat, Weibo, Taobao, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, mini programs, community alliances, etc.

Private domain traffic: WeChat public accounts, mini programs, communities, apps, personal accounts, etc.

The essential difference between public domain traffic and private domain traffic lies in the ownership and usage rights of the traffic.

Public domain traffic only has the right to use, similar to search traffic, and you can leave after use. Private traffic has ownership and can be used as a storage pool. The privatization of traffic is the biggest trend.

Now, whether it is a small or medium-sized enterprise or a large enterprise, they spend most of their money every year on public domain traffic, which is the conversion logic on the left (AIDMA).

The process is to first attract the consumer's attention, then make them interested and continue reading, then generate the desire to buy it and try it out, then remember the content (advertisement) and finally generate purchasing behavior.

However, you will find that the cost of acquiring customers is too high and the effect is becoming less and less significant, because the essence of the traditional funnel model is to screen users and constantly wash users.

Left: The AIDMA rule refers to a rule that kinetically guides consumers' psychological processes and patterns their sequence from the time they see an advertisement to the time they make a purchase.

Right: The AARRR model corresponds to the five important stages in the user life cycle. It is used to track product marketing and management and is a powerful tool for user growth.

When building a brand's private domain traffic (model on the right), the granularity of traffic aggregation will become finer, personal accounts and communities will become the main battlefields for the company's traffic and conversion, and public accounts will become publishing channels to serve the former two. This will help with brand promotion, mobilize the company's new media matrix to export brand values, sell products directly to its own fan pool, mobilize user recommendations, find incremental growth from existing stock, and achieve sales.

Therefore, in the context of online traffic becoming increasingly expensive, it is particularly important for corporate new media to pay close attention to how they use social media platforms to accumulate their own fans, manage their own private traffic, and reach core users at low cost.

05. New exploration of e-commerce monetization

Content e-commerce and social e-commerce: From everyone being a self-media to everyone being a distributor, the following summarizes three directions in which content e-commerce is developing relatively well. Using high-quality content + community operations, e-commerce has a high repurchase rate

「Goddess Evolution」 is a fashion and beauty account that started as a column on Zhihu. Unlike the common "grass-planting" accounts on the market, its articles read more like short essays of a popular science nature, trying to answer the various confusions of girls through scientific and systematic knowledge.

Such content is more professional and keenly captures the trend of upgrading the consumption concepts of the entire nation.

People are gradually moving away from the state of "I will buy it if many people say it is good" or "I will buy it if the experts say it is good". A more refined consumption and "well-educated" consumption consciousness are slowly occupying the minds of consumers.

After accumulating users, no matter it is topic selection or first draft, the team's operations staff will collect feedback from fans in Moments and WeChat groups. They will even have flash chats in WeChat groups to promote each other and aspire to become the "beauty nanny" of users.

They retain users and build a sense of trust by creating a sense of companionship. This has become the first step to success in beauty e-commerce.

It is understood that after Goddess Evolution released a tweet announcing the opening of its mini program "Temple Shop", an order with a customer unit price of around 220 yuan was generated on average every second within 10 minutes.

• The "de-filtered" sinking scene opens up sales channels for agricultural and sideline products

Interesting content does not specifically refer to beauty filters or delicacies from land and sea. On the vast land, there is also natural and original content waiting to be developed. This "de-filtered" sinking and reality will be the next content outlet.

For example, after becoming popular on Kuaishou, the "Huanong Brothers" no longer worry about the sales of bamboo rats. They also opened a small store through the e-commerce platform, and currently mainly sell local agricultural products such as flower mushrooms and Gannan navel oranges. The original and simple image is consistent with the product line, attracting many users to consume.

The same is true for the WeChat platform. Based on the attributes of your product , if you focus on pure natural agricultural and sideline products, then the "de-filtered" sinking scene will better gain the user's favor and trust and thus encourage consumption.

• The model is more advanced, from the buyer's shopping guide model to joint production, co-branded products, and proprietary products.

"Hu Xinshu" is a post-90s content entrepreneur who has moved from a single "personalized" IP voice to the three-dimensional construction of an account group. Now he has opened a store offline in Sanlitun and founded his own milk tea shop "Beihuan Tea".

Hu Xinshu can be regarded as the self-media who is best at doing "girl" business. His official account has received more than 600 brand advertisements in total.

Now, she has extended the "content + scene" marketing to offline. In addition to focusing on emotional tea drinks, she has also connected online and offline through official accounts, H5, story vending machines, etc. Not long after the establishment of "Beihuan", it has cooperated with Fliggy, the movies "The Convenience Store of Stories" and "Peter Rabbit", etc.

The path to IP derivation and monetization has laid a solid foundation step by step, starting from the content.

New Platforms:

Resources are tilted towards original content and short videos

The resources of major platforms are shifting towards original content and short video content.

High-quality, timely and accurate content is increasingly valued by users, and platforms are also paying more attention to content quality and the proportion of original content.

Therefore, they will increase support and subsidies for original content, optimize monetization channels, and continuously improve copyright protection to aggregate more original content.

△Data source: New List

The fierce battle for short videos will continue in 2019. With the arrival of 5G, the threshold for short videos will be further lowered, and the videoization of content will be unstoppable. Weibo, WeChat and Douyin will become a foregone conclusion, but the difficulty of video production has increased exponentially compared to text creation.

It should be noted that the short video reports from Kas Data and Xinbang show that the platform positioning and target audience are different. Take Douyin and Kuaishou as examples:

"Tik Tok" has a significant branding effect. When building a brand on Douyin, more emphasis is placed on the output of brand concepts and brand values, and by collaborating with various KOLs to crowdsource creativity and deeply cultivate users.

Kuaishou is free of filters. It is better to do "conversion" on Kuaishou, and the marketing strategy is more down-to-earth. Through "equal dialogue" with users, the unique "old iron economy" can be activated.

Among Douyin's active Blue Vs, the largest number of corporate accounts are from the three industries of culture and entertainment, life services, and clothing and accessories. The content operation effects of corporate accounts from the five industries of culture and entertainment, games, 3C digital, food and beverage, and IT/Internet are better. The interactive effects are best with content that is mainly funny, jokes, and situational dramas.

03.What will be the future of new media people?

1. Both individuals and businesses are anxious

Every time after the trend analysis, some changes will bring anxiety. I am often instilled with various "anxiety" by my students. "Anxiety" has become a high-frequency word on the lips of new media people. Not only you, but I am also anxious:

"I get anxious when my competitor makes over 100,000 yuan. I also get anxious when my competitor makes over 10,000 yuan."

"I owe my dad Jack Ma a lot of money. I'm so anxious."

"I owe Zhang Xiaolong a lot of daily work every month. I'm so anxious."

But, there is something even more worrying, I often receive various recruitment requests from companies , and they are often: short of people.

According to mainstream recruitment websites, many well-known Internet companies including BAT, TAL Education Group, and Sogou have a strong demand for new media talents, with annual salaries as high as 360,000 to 600,000 yuan. This is a very good salary.

When I first entered the industry, my monthly salary was 4,500. Every year I would set a goal for myself to continuously improve and progress, and naturally my salary would double. By the third year, my monthly salary had tripled. After five to seven years, your annual salary may be 600,000 to 1 million.

Some people may say that after seven years, all WeChat public accounts will no longer exist, so how can I double my revenue? What I want to tell you here is that new media people are not dependent on a certain platform. We need to build our own capability system.

I started out as a new media person in forums, then moved to Weibo and then WeChat. Murong Jicheng, our offline Douyin class teacher, also rose through the ranks from BBS to become a senior founder of an MCN agency.

Platforms and channels are changing rapidly. We are engaged in new media, operations, and marketing, but your underlying capabilities remain unchanged.

△You can draw your own ability map

A good new media person needs to have very comprehensive abilities. Content capabilities such as content creation, content editing, content integration, operational capabilities such as user operation, event operation, data operation, and marketing capabilities such as creative planning, marketing conversion, BD, and branding

You even need to understand some simple technologies, have product thinking, and be able to make good use of service accounts and mini-programs. A new media operation that does not understand technology and marketing is not good content.

2 Recommended learning and advancement paths for new media professionals:

New media editors are "all-rounders". They need to know everything and be proficient in everything. So you don't have to worry about your future at all. Once you become an expert in one of the fields and have the core capabilities in this field, you can try and delve into all non-technical positions in Internet companies.

You can go deep into the content direction and focus on content business, or you can go in the operation direction and become COO , or you can go in the marketing line and rise to become CMO in the sales and marketing direction, or you can even be fully qualified to be a CEO . You see many people who start their own businesses through new media. New media actually gives us many opportunities.

Many of Mantou’s students come from new media backgrounds and later switched to marketing and product operations. They are all able to get started quickly and are competent in their jobs.

Among them, there are people who are working on user growth, and through fission growth through mini programs, they have obtained 200,000 PVs in two weeks! There is also a student who was promoted to a regular employee and given a raise by his leader . Now he has become the company's marketing director, responsible for marketing conversions in the entire marketing department. I receive various good news every day, and their career advancement paths are very clear.

Therefore, compared with other people, new media people actually have more opportunities to try and choose.

Whether you fight alone or as part of a team, these are opportunities you should seize.

Source: Mantou Business School (ID: mantousxy)