Analysis of WeChat Reading Products

China's mobile reading industry has a history of nearly 20 years. Among the recently popular online reading apps, WeChat Reading is particularly special. In August 2015, WeChat Reading was officially launched.

1. Write in front

As a 21st-year campus recruit who discovered that the job did not fit his career plan shortly after joining, I bravely chose to quit my job based on my characteristics, abilities, and expectations for my own development, and following my passion for the product.

I believe that "active braking is a kind of wisdom, an adjustment to the certainty of reality, a timely "stop loss", and a new choice for future uncertainties, and the exploration of "profits"."

The original goal of this product analysis document was to "earn an interview opportunity." I have prepared a lot for this, please correct me if I am wrong.

2. Industry Analysis

1. Industry development history

China's mobile reading industry has a development history of nearly 20 years.

According to Mob Research Institute [2], 2003-2010 was the embryonic stage of the industry’s development. Mobile Internet began to become popular, the WAP protocol developed rapidly, WAP mobile phones could access the Internet through standard protocols, and mobile reading WAP terminals appeared. Their fast loading speed and low traffic consumption brought convenience to users.

But in the beginning, mobile reading WAP mainly took the free route, with serious problems such as piracy and weak monetization ability. A large number of websites that emerged in the trend faced the crisis of bankruptcy in the later period.

2011-2017 was the development period of the industry. The gradual popularization of smart phones and the continuous advancement of network technologies such as 3G and 4G have created conditions for the development of mobile reading.

During this period, applications were mainly divided into two categories: content (such as online literature platforms) and tools (such as e-book reading tools), and user experience was improved to a certain extent.

The country has also introduced relevant policies to protect copyright and combat piracy. Mobile reading apps have gradually standardized their business and started to develop payment models.

Starting from 2018, mobile Internet traffic peaked and the industry entered a period of prosperity, with big data and intelligent recommendations becoming keywords. Vertical content subdivisions continue to emerge, and content value has ushered in a good opportunity to be monetized.

Major Internet giants have entered the mobile reading market through both owning and investing, forming a relatively clear industry structure.

Looking into the future, the currently vigorously developed 5G technology may provide more new possibilities for the development of the mobile reading industry.

2. Industry PEST analysis

(1) Policy dimension

The national reading policy encourages:

Since 2014, "advocating national reading" has been written into the government work report for seven consecutive years.

The country advocates national reading from top to bottom, which reflects the government's attention to national reading, and also reflects the importance of national reading, providing strong policy support for the development of the mobile reading industry.

Based on this policy advocacy, in 2017, the State Council Legislative Affairs Office reviewed and approved in principle the "Regulations on Promoting National Reading (Draft)", thus achieving reading legislation;

In 2020, the "Notice of the Chinese Library Association on Carrying out National Reading in 2020" proposed "planning and selecting digital reading projects and continuously building the 'gateway to digital reading'", emphasizing seizing new opportunities for the development of the mobile communications era, enriching high-quality online resources, and continuously strengthening online services, in order to promote national reading to shift towards a combination of traditional reading and digital reading.

Intellectual property protection and anti-piracy supervision efforts have been strengthened:

In November 2019, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued and implemented the "Opinions on Strengthening Intellectual Property Protection", emphasizing that all regions and departments should increase resource input and support to promote the overall improvement of protection capabilities and levels.

In the second half of 2020, "Jianwang 2020" focuses on "strengthening copyright supervision on large-scale knowledge sharing platforms, and continuing to consolidate the work results achieved in the fields of online literature, animation, and network disk."

In August of the same year, the China Copyright Association's Text Copyright Working Committee was established in Beijing, aiming to solve problems in the industry's copyright protection, application and dissemination processes and create a good online copyright environment.

In November, the latest revision of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China was passed, which improved copyright protection in cyberspace and effectively promoted the fight against piracy and copyright protection of online literature.

(2) Economic dimension

The domestic economy has developed steadily, the added value of the cultural industry has increased, and the cultural consumption power of residents has increased:

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, my country’s GDP exceeded 10 billion yuan for the first time in 2020. The resilience of the domestic entertainment market has strengthened, and the added value of the cultural industry and its share of GDP have continued to increase[3];

The per capita disposable income of residents has increased year by year, people's demand for spiritual culture has increased, and cultural consumption power has increased, which together constitute the basis for the development of paid knowledge.

Pictures and texts are the earliest form of knowledge payment. Its main product forms include literary novels, self-media articles and comics, etc. Mobile reading content and related services also fall into this category.

The number of smartphone users in China continues to grow, laying the foundation for the continued development of mobile reading:

According to data from iMedia Consulting, the number of smartphone users in China has increased year by year since 2017, and there is a good trend for future development. Smartphones have become one of the indispensable daily necessities for most users, and the habit of mobile payment has gradually been formed.

On the one hand, as a carrier of mobile reading, the continuous development and popularization of smartphones has laid the equipment foundation for the development of the industry;

On the other hand, mobile payment is more convenient, providing good conditions for commercial monetization of the mobile reading industry.

(3) Social dimension

my country's reading ecology is booming, and mobile reading has become the main way for people to read:

(Comprehensive reading rate of various media among Chinese adults in 2020[4])

According to the 18th National Reading Survey conducted by the China Institute of Publishing Research, the comprehensive reading rate of various media among adult citizens in my country continued to grow steadily in 2020, and the exposure rate of digital reading methods was 79.4%, of which the mobile phone reading exposure rate reached 76.7%. In terms of the duration of exposure to different media, adults spend the longest time using mobile phones, reaching 100.75 minutes per day. Mobile reading has become mainstream.

China's paid knowledge market and user base are expanding rapidly, which is beneficial to mobile reading monetization:

In recent years, the public has paid more and more attention to the depth and breadth of their own knowledge. In addition, with the continuous improvement of copyright awareness, the acceptance of paying for knowledge has also been continuously improved, and the willingness to pay for high-quality content has also increased accordingly.

According to iMedia Research data[5], since 2017, the scale of China’s knowledge payment industry has expanded rapidly, reaching RMB 39.2 billion in 2020, and is expected to reach RMB 67.5 billion in 2021.

The user scale maintained steady growth, exceeding 410 million in 2020, and is expected to reach 477 million in 2021.

With the continuous development of the Internet industry, the connotation and form of knowledge payment have become more diverse, and users' payment habits have gradually been established, which is beneficial to the monetization of mobile reading.

(4) Technical dimension

The mobile payment environment is mature, making it easy to read and pay:

Mobile payment terminals such as WeChat and Alipay have penetrated into every aspect of people's daily consumption and gradually cultivated people's online payment habits, which provides convenient conditions and a mature environment for online payment of knowledge products.

In 2020, the number of monthly active users of WeChat exceeded 1.2 billion, and the number of monthly active users of Alipay exceeded 1 billion. Users can pay for reading through a variety of online payment methods, which is conducive to the healthy development of the industry.

The development of technologies such as 5G and AI optimizes user experience:

2020 is a year of special significance in the development of the industry.

The COVID-19 pandemic has pressed the pause button on the physical world, but on the other hand it has also pressed the accelerator button for the digital world, reconstructing the virtual and real structure of the cultural industry.

The development of technologies such as 5G networks and artificial intelligence has achieved phased results, jointly promoting the full-chain innovation of the cultural industry and accelerating the transformation of reading from digitalization to digital intelligence.

The entire mobile reading process will be positively impacted by the development and gradual implementation of 5G technology:

The popularization of 5G commercial use will further help expand the scenarios and carriers of mobile reading applications, bring better reading experience to users, and enable users to make better use of their fragmented time;

The acceleration of 5G new infrastructure has also promoted the development of cloud services and the Internet of Things in the field of mobile reading. New models such as cloud libraries and cloud bookstores have emerged, ushering in the bookstore 3.0 era.

The continuous upgrading and optimization of artificial intelligence technology provides a better solution for improving the mobile reading user experience.

Major mobile reading platforms attach importance to and apply AI technology: in content recommendation scenarios, they tend to use machine learning and big data technologies to distribute content more intelligently, so that users can more accurately match the content they are interested in;

In the book listening scenario, AI technology is used to simulate real-person voice reading, adapt to user needs, and provide multiple choices for completing target behaviors.

3. Industry Map

4. Market Analysis

According to iMedia Research data[6], the average growth rate of the market size of China's digital reading industry exceeded 15% from 2018 to 2020, and the overall market size is expected to exceed 45 billion yuan in 2022, with steady growth and slowing growth.

Since 2018, the accumulation of high-quality content has provided a good foundation for the development of the digital reading industry and attracted more users to participate;

Reading platforms have also begun to demonstrate their media value as carriers of high-quality advertisements, creating space for their commercial development.

The "2020 China Digital Reading Report" released by the China Audio-Visual and Digital Publishing Association shows that in 2020, the overall market size of China's digital reading industry was 35.16 billion, with a growth rate of 21.8.

The user scale of China's digital reading industry is 494 million, a year-on-year increase of 5.56%.

The average number of e-books read per person was 9.1, and the average number of audiobooks read per person was 6.3, an increase of 5.5% over last year;

The average single electronic reading time is 79.3 minutes, and the audio reading time is 62.8 minutes.

Combined with the market growth trend chart of China’s digital reading platform users[7], it can be seen that in the past two years, the overall effective usage time of users has fluctuated. Due to the impact of the epidemic, users have been staying at home for longer, which has to some extent increased the time they spend using digital reading products, and the number of days the platform is used has increased slowly.

These data mean that users are gradually developing digital reading habits, their stickiness to digital reading products is increasing, and the content resources and related services of digital reading products are also recognized by users.

With the development of digital reading habits, more and more users in my country are willing to pay for high-quality e-reading content, with the willingness to pay reaching 86.3%, and 26.8% of users spending an average of more than 100 yuan per month.

After years of development, China's digital reading industry has produced a certain number of top writers and excellent IP works, and is also constantly exploring commercial value. In the release of IP adaptations, audio novels and online TV series became the focus, accounting for 33.9% and 30.2% respectively. Among the top ten TV series in 2020, six were adapted from reading IPs.

5. Summary

The mobile reading industry has developed to date, thanks to the continuous empowerment of platforms by evolving technologies. The platforms have become more intelligent, the content themes have become more diversified, the user experience has become more convenient, the distribution recommendations have become more personalized, the industry map has become clearer, and the business models have become more diversified.

In the trillion-dollar pan-entertainment industry, mobile reading is only a small piece of the pie.

However, combined with the above analysis, the mobile reading industry still benefits from policy, economic, social and technological factors, and has promising prospects and possibilities. It is also an indispensable source of content in the pan-entertainment industry and is still highly valued.

It is worth noting that the competition within the mobile reading industry is currently mainly focused on the competition for the number of users and the length of usage. However, as the traffic of mobile Internet has peaked, from the analysis of the overall growth rate, the population and traffic dividends of mobile reading are gradually declining, the user scale has entered the stock market, and the cost of acquiring customers is gradually increasing.

The growth rate of the industry's overall market size has slowed down, but there is still room for growth. For the mobile reading platforms that have already entered the market, in order to occupy an advantageous ecological niche in subsequent competition, it is becoming increasingly urgent to find new growth paths after clarifying their own positioning.

According to the "2020 China Digital Reading Report", more than 80% of users with high willingness to pay believe that the digital reading industry urgently needs to improve content quality and product functions, and further implement copyright protection and crackdown on piracy , which will help to improve user stickiness and payment rates to a certain extent.

In addition, due to the wide age distribution of users and the wide distribution of urban levels[8], price sensitivity varies. In order to avoid user loss due to different consumption concepts, mobile reading platforms should focus on both paid reading and free reading to provide users with more choices.

For mobile reading platforms, high-quality works stimulate users' payment behavior, which in turn inspires authors to further improve the quality of their creations, forming a virtuous closed loop.

Free reading mainly serves the growth and retention of users, and also indirectly provides some commercial monetization possibilities through platform traffic.

At the same time, the creation and development of derivative products of high-quality IP will also become a more important commercial development direction.

Finally, we should seize new opportunities brought about by the development of technologies such as 5G and AI to improve user experience.

3. Product Analysis

1. Experience the environment

• Experience device: Honor 30S
• Operating system: Magic UI 3.1.1
• Product version: WeChat Reading 6.0.2 (updated on 2021.11.16)

2. Product positioning

(1) Positioning analysis

In August 2015, WeChat Reading was officially launched. Just as its slogan “Let reading no longer be lonely” suggests, it is a “reading + social” platform based on WeChat relationship chain, and supports reading on mobile phones, tablets, e-readers and web pages.

In the context of fierce competition in the online literature reading market, WeChat Reading chose to rely on WeChat's huge user base to open up the market through in-depth reading:

In the early days of its launch, the product focused on serious content and targeted the niche market of WeChat users who preferred to read publications.

Subsequently, in order to expand the user base, WeChat Reading gradually expanded the content boundaries to online literature, comics (offline in June 2021) and WeChat public account articles, and also provided an audiobook function, taking into account both "seriousness" and "entertainment" to meet the reading needs of more users.

The WeChat Reading app and WeChat mini-programs are deeply connected and highly linked, mainly through free unlimited cards, free reading in teams, and free paper books for participating in activities to attract new users and fission users. Based on the analysis of the reading behavior of users and their friends, personalized content distribution is carried out through intelligent recommendation algorithms, allowing users to develop reading habits and maintain continuous stickiness to the platform.

(2) User analysis[9]

Gender Ratio:

It can be seen from the iResearch Qianfan data that the proportion of male and female users of WeChat Reading is 49.71% and 50.29% respectively, which is not much different.

The reason is that WeChat Reading has been closely relying on the WeChat relationship chain since its inception. WeChat has a large user base and a wide coverage, and has become an essential social software in people's daily lives. Therefore, the gender ratio is relatively evenly distributed;

Second, WeChat Reading provides content that meets the needs of both men and women, and users can easily obtain content that interests them on the platform.

Age ratio:

Ninety percent of WeChat Reading users are under 40 years old, so the user age tends to be younger, and the difference in the proportion of people in each age group is not very obvious.

Most users under 24 years old are in school and have more free time in their lives, so reading is a common choice.

Users aged 24-30 are in the first half of their career development. The emphasis on personal growth and fierce competition in the workplace have given rise to a strong demand for reading among users, who choose to acquire knowledge and improve themselves through reading.

Users aged 31-40 have been in the workplace for many years and may need to activate their thinking through reading to break through career bottlenecks. At the same time, they begin to play a parenting role in the family. In order to learn new social roles, they need to acquire new knowledge from books, which is a kind of development of socialization.

Their learning motivation is clearer and they are more goal-oriented in terms of the knowledge they need. WeChat Reading has a simple interactive design style and rich authoritative publications, making it easier to gain the favor of this type of users.

Spending power:

The consumption capacity of WeChat Reading users is mainly concentrated in the middle-low, medium and middle-high levels, which is quite different from other consumption capacity levels.

Since the content (especially publications) provided by WeChat Reading is of high quality, users have a stronger willingness to consume, and low-middle, middle and upper-middle consumers have a certain economic foundation, so they are more likely to pay for it, become platform members or buy paper books.

Accordingly, such users have higher expectations for the user experience and are more sensitive to advertisements and low-quality content.

City distribution:

More than 60% of WeChat Reading’s user base is distributed in first-tier cities and new first-tier cities.

The economies of these cities are developed, and users have higher overall income levels and stronger spending power, which translates to lower price sensitivity and fewer concerns about paying for premium content.

At the same time, competition in these cities is fierce and pressure is high, and users have a stronger need for self-improvement.

In summary, the user characteristics of WeChat Reading are:

There are slightly more women, and the overall gender is relatively evenly distributed; they tend to be younger, under 40 years old;

Living in first-tier and new first-tier cities with relatively high economic development levels, they have a strong need for self-improvement;

They have a certain level of spending power, have high requirements for content quality, and are sensitive to advertisements and low-quality content.

Correspondingly, the content resources that have been put on the shelves of WeChat Reading are mainly published books, covering a wide range of content categories (literature, history, social culture, economics and finance, education and learning, and knowledge popularization account for a large proportion), and the content quality and tone are high.

Although a large number of online novels and popular IP works have been put on the shelves in the past two years, they are not the category of reading materials that it vigorously promotes.

In addition, advertisements within the WeChat Reading app appear less frequently and have a weak presence for users, making it easier to create a good user experience.

3. Functional Analysis

(1) Functional structure diagram

(2) Analysis of social attribute functions

    By analyzing the user needs of mobile reading products based on the KANO model, it can be inferred that the basic demand is rich reading content resources, the expected demand is high-quality reading experience and the exchange of free unlimited cards, and the exciting demand is related to social interaction, including interactions with friends and acquaintances and stranger communities.

Compared with other mobile reading products on the market, WeChat Reading, which focuses on "reading + social interaction", has more prominent social function design. Social interaction has also become an important part of the product logic and the core competitiveness that differentiates the product from competing products. Therefore, the functional analysis part of this article will focus on functions related to social attributes.

As mentioned earlier, WeChat Reading has relied heavily on the WeChat relationship chain since its inception, which allows users to have a relatively familiar social environment when using the software for the first time.

By observing the four tabs on the main page of the WeChat Reading mobile app ("Reading", "Bookshelf", "Discover", and "Me"), it is not difficult to find that compared with other mobile reading software, WeChat Reading weakens the presence of the "Bookstore" and does not place it at the first-level entrance. Except for the "Bookshelf", the other three tabs all have more or less traces of socialization, which is also the feature of WeChat Reading.

This product design, which focuses on social interaction among acquaintances and is supplemented by a community of strangers, organically combines the strong relationship network and weak relationship network of people's interpersonal interactions, which helps to enhance user stickiness and extend user usage time.

Next, we will analyze the social attribute-related functions of WeChat Reading:

Reading Rankings:

In the reading rankings, users can view the reading time and ranking of their WeChat reading friends, and like their friends' reading status.

The ranking is cleared at 24:00 every Sunday night and the ranking is sorted in units of 7 days.

This form stimulates users' competitive/comparative psychology to a certain extent, stimulates users' reading motivation, encourages users to extend their reading time, and increases users' activity.

At the same time, users can also use the "poke" function to remind friends who have not started reading this week, which is an effective way to improve user retention.

It is worth mentioning that only book lovers who follow each other can participate in the ranking.

There are two sources of friends: one is the user’s WeChat friends, and the other is strangers met while using the product.

The latter is actually a weak relationship in the interpersonal network, but including it in the reading rankings enhances its presence, helps strangers to understand each other, and thus promotes the transformation of weak relationships into strong relationships. It is also an external manifestation of sociality.

Home feed friends are reading:

In addition to personalized recommendations based on the user's reading history, the "Reading" feed on the WeChat Reading app's homepage is dominated by the reading status of the user's friends, including friends' reading excerpts, books friends are reading, and book lists created or collected by friends. This shows the importance of social relationships in product design.

Why can Haoyouzaidu better respond to users’ needs in book selection?

On the one hand, although people's core needs and preferences for reading vary at different stages of life, social relationships will also change with their living conditions. At every time point, the social circle with which they are most closely connected shares the same needs and preferences. Even the book friendships formed during the reading process are most likely due to a common interest in a certain type of book.

Therefore, the reading status of friends can also reflect the user's needs and tastes to a certain extent.

On the other hand, this content distribution based on social relationship chains allows friends to participate in the book recommendation process. Compared with intelligent recommendations based on algorithms, the books (book lists) that friends are reading are endorsed by real reading behaviors. Users can easily project their trust in their friends onto the books (book lists) they choose, and this recommendation behavior is often more easily accepted and recognized by users.

In addition, this recommendation function also helps to promote social behavior.

When users find that their friends have the same book preferences as themselves, they are likely to participate in the reading and interact with their friends, generating likes, comments, and other behaviors. This social relationship value will help the product retain users.

Friends’ thoughts:

"Friends' Thoughts" is a secondary entrance under the "Discover" tab.

Users can see the thoughts, excerpts and book reviews generated by their friends while reading, and support forwarding (directly retweeting, quoting, sharing to WeChat/Moments/private messages, etc. within the app), commenting and likes.

This feature complements the "Friends Reading" feature in the homepage feed: "Friends Reading" focuses more on showing the books read by friends, underlined excerpts during reading, and book lists created/collected;

“Friends’ Thoughts” is a display of specific opinion-based content that contains more information, supports more interactive behaviors, and provides users with a shorter path to complete these behaviors.

Overall, "Friends' Thoughts" is an acquaintance UGC community.

Reading team:

In the activities of the reading team, users can share the mini program to invite friends in the WeChat list to form a reading team. Three people form a team and obtain corresponding points by completing target behaviors such as logging in, reading, interacting and answering questions. Team members can check each other's points.

In a 21-day period, if the team's total points reach different points requirements, they can be exchanged for corresponding rewards (such as free unlimited cards, book coins, and ultimate lottery opportunities);

If the team's total score reaches 60 points, it will be automatically upgraded in the next time period and matched with more generous rewards.

A careful analysis of the target behaviors for obtaining points reveals that:

• One point is awarded for logging in daily. After users launch the app, they are likely to complete other target behaviors, which lowers the user's usage threshold and helps improve product DAU and retention rate, as well as user willingness to use.
• Matching points based on reading time encourages users to develop reading habits and prolong reading time, which helps to seize users' entertainment time and increase product usage time;
• Encouraging users to like others' readings, ideas, comments or rankings every day, as well as to publish public book reviews, ideas and comments, will help stimulate interaction between friends, increase the amount of UGC content in the product community, and enhance users' sense of presence and participation in the community;
• Users can participate in the daily answer and successfully complete the level to earn extra points, which helps to enhance the user's sense of accomplishment and increase user activity.

The overall design of the reading team fully takes into account the users' team awareness and sense of responsibility, and leverages social relationships to ensure user stickiness.

In order to obtain more rewards, team members will remind each other and promote the completion of the above behaviors, thus achieving the design goals of the product team.

Book friends:

The "Book Friends" function currently has two entrances:

First, under the book cover on the book details page, an entry is designed to view the number of readers, showing the number of people who have read this book on the WeChat Reading app, with "xx friends reading" marked below;

Second, on the book reading page, click the person icon in the upper toolbar, and the number in the upper right corner is the number of people who have read the book today.

Click to enter and you can see the reading progress, time, number of notes and thoughts about the book of your friends and other book lovers. Likes and comments are supported.

This function responds to the product positioning and creates a feeling of "not being lonely when reading" for users.

Users can check the information of book friends to find out how many people are reading the book with them, what everyone has annotated and shared about the book content, how long it will take to finish reading the book, etc. They may also find book friends who resonate with them, exchange views and insights on reading, and establish further connections and interactions.

Hot underlines/hot ideas:

While reading a book, you can see sentences marked with grey dotted lines. These are popular underlined sentences based on data from other users who have read the book.

By clicking on the sentence, you can quickly copy, underline, share, make a bookmark, etc. You can also see the number of people who have underlined the sentence and the thoughts left by other users after reading it, and you can discuss and interact with other users.

There are two viewing entrances for popular lines:

First, click on the sentence to see the "underline quick view" on the floating layer;

Second, you can click the note icon in the toolbar at the bottom of the reading page. In addition to your own notes, you can also see popular highlights.

After clicking, you can directly view the previous/next popular underlined sentence.

This design also brings out the advantages of e-books over paper books. Users can see real-time updated content in an immersive reading scene. The sharing of other people's notes is like barrage while reading, which can help users diverge their ideas and broaden their thinking, enhance the readability of books, respond to users' curiosity, and promote interaction between users, cleverly integrating social elements.

At the same time, the large amount of data generated based on the actual reading behavior of other users has a strong credibility, which is equivalent to "voting with their feet" to screen the content of the book, which can help users understand the essence of the book in a shorter time.

Small circle:

Starting from July 2021, WeChat Reading launched the "Small Circle" function, which the official called a "reader interest circle centered on specific books."

During the seed and growth stages of the product, the social relationship chain foundation brought by WeChat and the mature operational capabilities of the product team made the growth data very impressive. This is growth based on strong relationships.

But unlike music, movies and TV dramas, reading itself is a solitary activity that takes more time and energy. Moreover, everyone's reading tastes and needs are different. It is difficult to find friends around you who have recently read the same book and have the same need to discuss it.

In addition, although the functions of underlining book content and sharing ideas during the reading process are relatively mature, and there is relatively rich UGC content, it is somewhat fragmented, and it is easy to be overwhelmed by too much content, and the interaction is also relatively limited.

Therefore, the launch of the small circle function, as an exploration of weak relationships in interpersonal networks by the WeChat Reading team, fully utilizes the natural topic base of "reading", improves the reading and social functions within the product, and responds to the above two needs.

Currently, WeChat Reading does not allow users to create their own circles. The existing small circles are based on interests and are divided into two categories:

The first is open-ended theme groups, such as the "Have you read today?" group, the "Photography enthusiasts" group, and the "Product manager" group. The discussion content of these groups is not limited to a specific book, and the topics are more open and free. They may be intended to gather people with the same hobbies or industries and try to build a content community to increase daily activity.

The second type is a book-themed circle, which basically consists of books with IP and large traffic on the entire network, such as "The Three-Body Problem", "The Son-in-Law", and "Lord of Mysteries". They have obvious intentions to divert traffic, and these books can also bring about highly heated discussions. Currently, the posts in the circle are highly correlated with the content of the books, and most of them are about confusion during the reading process and feelings after reading.

Compared with other community products, what is special is that WeChat Reading’s small circle has set a threshold mechanism for posting answers.

Currently, all small circles can be joined directly. Users can browse the content posted by users in the circle on the specific small circle page or the "small circle" homepage feed. However, if users want to post in an open-topic small circle, they need to answer the "posting entry questions" and answer them completely correctly.

The design of the questions is related to the theme of the circle. They are relatively conventional and professional. For example, the "Photography Enthusiasts" circle needs to answer the meaning of image resolution, the purpose of macro lenses, the time periods of the day that are not suitable for photography, etc.

Screening users by answering questions helps to gather users who are truly concerned about this field and exclude users who may bring low-quality content. This provides a certain degree of guarantee for the quality and matching of UGC content and increases users' favorability towards the community.

At the same time, since the questions are not too difficult, users who pay daily attention to this field can complete them relatively easily. This way of answering questions increases the fun, creates a sense of ritual for users, and also generates topics.

In the early days of the launch of the "Product Manager" circle, many users posted in the circle to discuss the design of the threshold mechanism for answering questions, which brought a wave of popularity to the circle.

Currently, there are two entrances to the circle:

1. I found that the entrance design of tab→Small Circle is quite standard, without obvious traffic diversion.
2. Book reading interface: In the reading interface of some books, you can find the small circle entrance with the planet icon. The WeChat reading team linked some books with small circles of corresponding topics, such as "Yu Jun's Product Methodology" linked to the "Product Manager" circle, and "Tearing Down the Wall of Thinking" linked to the "Learn Some Psychology Every Day" circle, providing support for reading conversion.

The entry points for users to post posts are:

Enter the homepage of the small circle from the Discover tab, click the + sign in the upper right corner to enter the edit page, and you can select the circle you want to post to at the bottom.

However, the path here is not smooth enough. When selecting a circle, all circles are provided as options. However, when the user selects a circle that he has not answered questions for, he will be prompted with "You need to pass the circle exam before you can post". The posting behavior is interrupted here and the user will not be redirected directly to the answering page. The path to complete the target behavior is long, which may reduce the user's willingness to post.

Click "Post a Message" at the bottom of the specific circle page. If the user has completed the questions, they can directly edit and publish the content;

If the user has not completed answering the questions, a "Post Entry Questions" page will pop up, prompting the user to complete the questions first.

Posts in each circle are presented in the form of a feed stream and can be sorted according to reply time, posting time and number of comments. There is no other more complex intelligent recommendation mechanism, and no advertising content is seen.

At present, there is still much room for improvement in the topic matching and content quality of WeChat reading circles, and an interactive atmosphere has not yet been formed.

However, there is no obvious official content operation method:

The open topic circles are run by the official team;

The book-themed circle has opened up circle leader privileges to the general book lovers. One only needs to fill in the WeChat ID, social media account and the reason for wanting to become a circle leader to apply. The official will give exclusive identity certification, unlimited book coin cards and offline salon opportunities as rewards.

Some circles are still recruiting.

There is a Featured section in each circle, but the number of posts in this section is very small, with only about ten posts in each circle.

It is not difficult to see that neither the circle owners nor the official team who have the authority to add posts to the featured posts have made any efforts in this regard, and it is speculated that the official has not given any clear guidance either.

Therefore, how to increase user participation, stimulate user desire to express themselves, encourage users to create high-quality content, and at the same time create a good UGC ecology to avoid the overall style of circle content from developing towards vulgarity and entertainment is the key to the subsequent development of WeChat reading circles.

4. Operation model analysis

WeChat Reading went through a long process to import and activate users.

In 2018, WeChat Reading launched the unlimited card experience activity for the first time, and users did not need to pay extra, and this model has continued to this day.

It helps to attract new users and develop product usage habits. During product usage, WeChat Reading encourages users to continuously extend their reading time by exchanging unlimited cards and reading team points for reading time, reading rankings, etc., thus forming a positive cycle and helping to retain old users.

In September 2021, WeChat Reading participated in the linkage with other products within the group. Users can use the Tencent meeting usage time in their account in the last three natural months to redeem a free unlimited card for WeChat Reading. 20 hours of effective meeting time can be redeemed for a 30-day WeChat Reading unlimited card, which is very attractive to users and will also help to divert and grow users of the two products. Compared with other unlimited card subsidy methods, this is a new promotion attempt.

The product design team has also developed a variety of social gameplay to motivate users to invite more new users and lost users:

WeChat Reading has been relatively perfect in user growth through various invitation mechanisms.

The application's "welfth floor" has launched activities such as inviting friends, daily answers, sharing likes, team lottery, reading teams, and free books to receive books based on flipping, sharing, and "reading and giving away".

Their initiation rules are simple and clear, with clear regulations on participation conditions and rewards, which are easy for users to understand, and the participation threshold is low, and the user's willingness to participate is strong.

These operational activities not only help to enhance user stickiness, but more importantly, most activities include social elements, requiring users to complete the target behavior of "sharing" and make full use of users' product promotion value.

At the same time, WeChat Reading and WeChat mini-programs have been deeply connected, creating convenient conditions for users' sharing behavior and promoting the exposure and dissemination of WeChat Reading in the WeChat scenario.

5. Business model analysis

Although WeChat Reading's operating strategy in attracting new users and retention has indeed created excellent growth data in the early stage, free + payment is the general trend, and it is difficult to cover costs by relying solely on advertising revenue.

Currently, WeChat Reading currently has three ways to monetize, namely paid membership, advertising revenue and paper book sales.

(1) Paid Membership

The paid membership of WeChat Reading is reflected in the form of a "paid unlimited card".

It mainly promotes automatic renewal continuous members of 19 yuan/month. The main rights include free publications for the audience, some online novels for free, no advertisements during reading, exclusive fonts and backgrounds for readers, and coupons for full discounts on paper books.

However, WeChat Reading is still extremely restrained in the user's reading process, and most publications in the bookstore can be read for free. Therefore, for users, the value-added services provided by paid unlimited cards are not very attractive compared to free unlimited cards, and it is difficult for users to have a strong desire to pay.

By analyzing the user preferences of WeChat Reading, it is not difficult to find that there are two groups that love serious literature and online novels.

For users who love serious literature, paid members will be more attractive. "Free publications in the audience" means providing more comprehensive content resources, while other rights enhance the experience during the reading process;

For users who love online novels, the rights and interests of WeChat Reading’s unlimited card are less competitive than other products that focus on online literature. “Some online novels are free” means that users may still have to pay for their favorite online novels after paying to become members, and users often hate secondary charges, and the term “unlimited card” is also easy to cause misunderstanding.

However, after experience, I found that the paid part of online novels in the bookstore that are currently at the top of the rankings are all free to paid unlimited cards users, and there is no additional fee. If the official can further explain this, it may increase the willingness of users who love online novels.

The way to achieve commercial revenue by providing value-added services to members is relatively traditional and simple, but there is still room for exploring diverse gameplay.

For example, the difference between paid unlimited card membership rights and free unlimited card user rights is widened, especially in the degree of content resources provided (the specific boundaries are still needed based on data situation and user feedback). After all, content is still the core of mobile reading products.

(2) Paper books for sale

In 2020, WeChat Reading began to support the purchase of paper books in the app.

This is in line with the positioning of WeChat Reading: it focuses on serious content, starting from users who prefer to read publications - and "publications" means that such content also has paper books.

For users who love serious literature, paper books may not be completely replaced by mobile reading products. This is because although mobile reading products provide rich publishing content resources, the digital copyright they own still cannot cover all publishing books. For resources that have not yet been launched on the platform, users often obtain them by purchasing paper books;

On the other hand, users who prefer serious reading often have years of reading habits. They have established strong dependence and emotional connections on paper books longer before the e-book form became popular, and it is difficult to quickly change this tendency.

At the same time, long-term facing electronic screens may cause eye discomfort and cause a series of symptoms. Doctors also recommend reading paper books.

Therefore, although physical bookstores are generally facing difficulties in operating, users’ demand for paper books has not disappeared, and there is still a market for paper books.

Based on the above reasons, the sale of paper books in the WeChat Reading app is a response to the limitations of digital resource copyright, a supplement to the integrity of the library resources, and enriching the application content.

Compared with the brief introduction of books by e-commerce platforms or physical bookstores, the book reviews and ideas published by a large number of real users in the application of WeChat Reading provide strong endorsement for the quality of book content, so the ability to convert users to paper books is stronger.

At the same time, one-stop service improves the convenience of users in finding resources and can improve user experience to a certain extent.

However, users currently have relatively single channels for purchasing paper books in the application. First, they designed a paper book classification entrance in the bookstore, which is relatively hidden, with no obvious guidance, and only selected limited-time special books on the day were displayed after entering, with only 20 books;

Second, on the book details page, we provide paper books to purchase prices and discounts, but the discounts are often small, and it does not have an advantage in its attractiveness to users compared with other e-commerce platforms.

At the same time, from the perspective of e-commerce, the service of purchasing paper books is a bit too simple, which is reflected in:

After the user clicks on the book of interest, he jumps to the page to add the shopping cart/checking without any additional introduction. The settlement page is also extremely concise, only the service, delivery and price are marked. No relevant purchase agreements and terms of service are found, no provisions, books sources and after-sales service methods are provided, and no operational activities such as full discounts are seen.

(3) Advertising

In terms of advertising, WeChat Reading follows the same restraint style as the WeChat team.

When opening the screen and switching tab pages, we basically achieved zero pop-ups. Although we are unpaid unlimited card users, the advertising frequency during reading is only 30 minutes/time, and it can be closed in a few seconds.

Most of the advertising content is recommended by paid unlimited cards and books, which matches the tone of the product. It can be said that the disturbance to users has been minimized and users are more likely to accept.

Another way of presenting advertisements is to serve as a condition for users to exchange benefits.

For example, in "Daily Answers", if a user answers the wrong question and fails to pass the level, he can get a chance to resurrection by watching the advertisement;

In operational activities such as redemption of unlimited cards/book coins, reading team points for rewards, etc., users can choose to share links with friends or watch 30-second advertising videos to complete redemption.

The content of these advertisements has nothing to do with reading, and there are all kinds of advertising themes.

Data from iMedia Consulting [10] shows that 42.9% of mobile reading users hope to complete platform tasks (watch ads, continuous check-in, etc.) to read for free, and there is a clear need for free access to content.

For this type of price-sensitive users, based on the incremental value of traffic brought by the free model, we can further explore how commercial models such as advertising can better organically combine with product design.

4. Competitive Product Analysis

1. Confirm the competition

According to iResearch Qianfan's application list and search results of Baidu and Huawei App Store, products with similar business types and target groups are selected from the directly related market segments of the product, and finally selected Zhangyue and NetEase Snail Reading as competitors of WeChat Reading.

After years of development and precipitation, Zhangyue app, which was launched in 2011, has a huge advantage in user size and copyright resources: it focuses on entertainment reading platforms, and provides content resources including publications, online literature, listening to books and comics. As of July 2020, there were nearly 60 million monthly active users.

As a veteran product in the industry, Zhangyue App has always been at the top of the rankings and is a competitor in the first echelon of WeChat Reading. Due to its representativeness in mobile reading products, there should be reference points in functional design.

NetEase Snail Reading was launched in 2017. It is similar to WeChat Reading in terms of product positioning. It focuses on serious reading and only provides publication resources, but does not provide other content resources such as online literature and comics.

At the same time, the product slogan is "time gives true knowledge", focusing on the service of "free reading for one hour a day", and innovating the paid dimension, shifting from purchasing reading resources to purchasing reading time, which is a different exploration from people's purchasing habits in the past.

NetEase Snail Reading is committed to providing immersive and concise e-reading experience for users who love reading, and hopes to build a three-dimensional and all-round mobile reading community with users to meet the personalized reading needs of users at different reading levels.

2. Analysis of the social attribute function of competitors

(1) Experience version

• Palm Reading: 7.55.0
• NetEase Snail Reading: V1.9.25

(2) Palm Reading App

topic:

In addition to exclusive topics in the circle, Zhangyue app also inserted the "Daily Topic" operation activities in the "Discover" tab's card-style information flow and publishing bookstore.

These topics are updated daily, sometimes with prizes. The topic details page has carefully designed layout and copywriting, interpretation of topics and invitations to user creation content, and also attached books for recommended reading, which can be seen from the care of the Zhangyue operation team.

The content posted by users here supports being liked, but does not support being commented. Comments with higher likes will be presented in "popular comments", while other comments are arranged in reverse order of release time.

Square + Popular Circles:

This function of Zhangyue app is similar to the small circle function that WeChat recently launched, but the specific participation settings and operation methods are different.

The "Platform" function is not even fully displayed in the first screen in the "More Functions" under the "My" tab, and there are no other prompts. The entrance is relatively hidden and not friendly enough to new users, hindering the path for new users to create UGC content.

The "Platform" page is similar to the WeChat small circle homepage. After entering, there are entrances to "My Circle" and "Hot Circle" as well as feed streams of high-popular UGC posts.

Unlike WeChat Reading, the circle division of Zhangyue app is entirely based on interests. There is no reader circle exclusively for specific large-scale books, and it is not even closely related to reading.

Currently, there are a total of 61 circles for users to choose from, with a wide variety.

Every specific circle can be joined without a threshold.

On the circle details page, you can see the design of the "Active List":

The circle of Zhangyue app has clear points rules and is guided when new users join the circle.

Users can earn points by posting, replying to posts, likes, being elaborated and daily check-in to improve their ranking in the standings.

At the same time, circle management depends on administrators, but unlike WeChat Reading, the application threshold for administrators in the Zhangyue circle is high, and users need to earn 800 points in this circle, which has certain requirements for user activity.

In terms of content operations, by browsing posts in the circle, we can find that the overall quality of the content of the circle is relatively high, which can be seen in the average number of words output by users.

The reason behind this may be related to the accumulation of Zhangyue over the years. He has his own experience in community operation, and uses "circle rules" to constrain potential low-quality content, and the incentive system for users is also very clear.

Second, Zhangyue has certain threshold requirements for users’ posting behavior, requiring users to reach level 4. The way to obtain experience is to recharge and complete the bookstore tasks. It requires investing a certain amount of money or time, which will isolate the content publication of new users who have not yet become sticky to the product, and put the content creation rights in the hands of users who have established product usage habits and are relatively adapted to the product style.

At the same time, each circle has exclusive topic activities. For example, in the "comic" circle, there are topics such as #Anime Entering the House# and #Chasing the Cartoons# to stimulate users' participation and interaction.

In addition, Zhangyue has a large number of online writers signed by the authors, which is their unique advantage. In some circles, the authors will "take in person" to promote their new works, which makes good use of the interactivity of online literature, that is, fans who are interested in books can directly interact with them through comments under the post, narrowing the distance between the author and the fans, enhancing the stickiness of fans, and making the content hotter continue to ferment.

Although the circle of Zhangyue has been designed to add accentuate posts, there is no separate "element" category in the feed stream of the circle details page, and it can only be sorted by posting time and post popularity.

At the same time, due to the large amount of UGC content in the circle and the high frequency of updates, the popularity of interactions is polarized, that is, high-popular posts can get thousands of interactions, but more posts are ignored.

(3) NetEase Snail Reading

Co-reading mechanism:

The co-reading mechanism means that users can create a co-reading group independently. After the creation is completed, the group will be displayed on the book details page, and other users can choose to join or watch.

When a user initiates a co-reading, he can share his invitation in the co-reading declaration or make rules;

In terms of specific configuration, it supports customizing the number of 2-50 people, and selecting a 7-day/15-day/21-day reading cycle. During this period, users in the group will read and annotate the same book together.

On the one hand, group members can view each other's reading progress and speed, and the benefits after reading together are also distributed based on rankings to stimulate users' reading motivation;

On the other hand, during the reading process, you can see the annotations of other group members, and support likes and continuous replies. This method is further than the "popular marking/ideas" of WeChat Reading, that is, acquaintances within a small range (the relationship between group members should be stronger than the relationship between completely unfamiliar book friends) interact, just like friends accompanying them to discuss and share books, which can enhance the user's reading fun.

Because this design is different from other mobile reading products, it is also conducive to enhancing users' stickiness to NetEase Snail Reading.

It is worth mentioning that the reading group supports "watching".

The onlooker gameplay refers to a way of silently participating in co-reading. Users can join those who open onlooker permissions, browse other people's co-reading annotations, and support writing their own notes (others are not visible), but cannot participate in discussions and do not count for rankings.

As the initiator of the reading group, users can choose to charge the group members for access, with the option of 9.9 yuan/19.9 yuan/39.9 yuan. You can obtain income by initiating a reading together. You can also set charges for onlookers to generate onlookers' rights. Since there is no upper limit on the number of onlookers, the more users you watch, the more profits the initiator.

This is very attractive to senior users and professional readers in the community, and their own influence can also increase.

For ordinary users, if they just want to find someone to read together and discuss the content of the book, they can also choose a free joining form without thresholds.

In addition, the group sponsor has the right to limit the scope of the group's disclosure, and can choose the form of disclosure/disclosure that requires review/privacy, etc., that is, support the screening of candidates for reading, which helps promote users to spontaneously maintain the co-season atmosphere.

NetEase Snail Reading also periodically operates some co-reading activities, setting up rewards to different degrees to motivate users. Participate in the group to read on the event details page, and the reading time is 1 hour, and each person can get 3 days of membership;

In the same writer's section, the group with the largest sum of total reading time and total annotation interactions can be rewarded with snail shells;

Rewards from different reading groups can be superimposed, and there are additional random rewards. This greatly stimulates users' enthusiasm for reading, and uses competition + reward to encourage users to extend their reading time, increase interaction with group members, and ultimately improve users' activity and retention.

Home page interest recommendation + article column:

The "Reading" feed stream on NetEase Snail Reading provides UGC content recommended based on user reading interests, including book reviews and opinion articles.

The former is a recommendation around books in the Snail Book Library, which encourages users to introduce good books to others based on their own real experience, and responds to users' needs to "not know what books to read";

The latter is a hot topic analysis and opinion expression related to Shuqiang, aiming to "provide a way of thinking that is beneficial to most people and trigger in-depth thinking and discussion among others." When users do not want to enter in-depth reading, this design can effectively occupy the user's fragmented time.

You can add the corresponding book links in the library to the article. If readers do not want to browse the full text, click "Only read x books" in the upper right corner of the article reading page to quickly understand the details of the book list recommended by the article author.

The overall quality of the article content is high, thanks to clear content creation guidance, editorial recommendation mechanism and high-quality content incentive policies:

Clear content creation guidance:

Currently, there is no additional requirement for users to post articles on the platform, but clicking the "Write Book Review" button will pop up the floating layer of "NetEase Snail Reading Original Requirements".

Among them, there are "writing secrets", which provide users with clear and detailed guidance from the perspective of topic selection, title and content. For example, the title number is topped with punctuation marks, the word count is preferably 1,000-2,500 words, and the font size and format of segmented subtitles, etc.

Editor's recommendation mechanism:

The "NetEase Snail Reading Original Requirements" clearly states that if the content created by users is of high quality, it will be added to the recommended alternative library;

If the editor recommends to the reading page, a private message will remind the user to make changes in the title and content according to the snail's requirements.

Therefore, in the high-quality content recommendation mechanism, there is a complete process of "user creation → recommendation alternative library → reading page", which is also publicly presented to users.

High-quality content incentive policy:

Anyone who is selected as the recommended alternative library will receive a 3-day membership card directly; articles recommended by the editor will receive a 5-day membership card at least;

If you continue to be recommended, you can become a snail certified reader and enjoy more privileges (such as exposure of key resources inside and outside the APP, cash income withdrawal, etc.)…

In solving the problem of high-quality UGC creation motivation, Snail Reading provides real membership benefits and certification privileges, and the exposure of the homepage can also help users get more re-reviews, likes and fans, which is attractive to users.

The entry to the article column is located at the top and middle of the feed stream of the "Ling Read" tab.

The article is classified and summarized according to the dimensions of the article theme and author, such as "'Our Family's Story' Selected Story Collection" and "Snail Reading Renle's Lexus Reading will take you to "The Sword Walk in the Snow"". It is suitable for users who are interested in a certain type of topic or an author, and help them find the content they want faster.

Book Topics + Questions:

The details page of each book is "Hot Topics" column, which shows the discussions generated by users based on reading: each user can raise topics related to the book in order to create discussions and other interactions with users who read the book.

The topic has a wide range of extensions, not limited to the discussion of the plot itself, but also has feelings and communication based on the theme. For example, the topic of the novel "The Kite Chaser" includes "What kind of experience is it to read this book?", "'For you, thousands of times', how do you understand the theme?", "If you are Amir (the protagonist), what will you do when you see Hassan being bullied?", etc., which are a bit like the "Zhihu" in the field of mobile reading.

User comments are also very exciting, with a large number of words and high overall content quality.

At the same time, we support comments and like content posted by other users. For each like, users can get 1 minute of reading time, which inspires users to actively reply and generate better content, and enhances users' enthusiasm, participation and the quality of UGC content.

At the same time, there is also a "question" function during the user's reading process. Unlike the "Hot Topics" column, the topic is more based on the overall feeling of reading books, while "question" focuses more on a specific detail.

In WeChat Reading, "popular ideas" partially play these roles, that is, in some places where proper nouns appear, users will annotate this and present it in the form of "ideas". However, "popular ideas" are more about users' annotations and feelings during the reading process, and the differences are more obvious from the "question" function of NetEase Snail Reading.

Currently, there are three access portals for "Question":

1. In the reader interface, there are sentences marked with red underlines, and there is a pound sign icon at the end of the sentence. Click the icon to see other users’ questions about this sentence in the past, and they will also present the most praiseworthy answers.
2. During the reading process, if the user encounters a plot that he does not understand or is confused about professional nouns, he can select specific sentences by long pressing and clicking the "Ask a Question" button in the floating layer to quickly complete the question.
3. In the upper right corner of the reader, there is a "Question" button, and the numbers next to it show the number of questions asked in this chapter. After clicking, you can enter the entire topic page and quickly browse all the questions. You can support the arrangement by chapter and popularity. You can also publish your own topics and participate in discussions posted by others.

When users are confused in the same place during reading, the "ask questions" function can solve the problem more quickly without causing comprehension obstacles, thus ensuring the smoothness of reading.

At the same time, users can also see other readers' understanding of the content of the book, which helps the divergence of their thinking.

If users also have their own opinions on the topic and want to share their opinions or knowledge, they can click "Participate Topic" to leave a message, and they can also get additional free reading time rewards by getting likes from other users.

5. Optimization concept

1. Optimize the "small circle" ecosystem and do a good job in community operations

Compared with the community construction of the two competitors, WeChat Reading's "small circle" has been launched for a short time and the overall operational methods are not mature enough.

The operation planning of the community is inseparable from users, content and mechanisms. Next, based on the functional analysis of competitors and their own experience, we will talk about the idea of ​​optimizing the content ecosystem of "small circles".

(1) User

The users are divided based on the pyramid hierarchical model, which are:

• Celebrities: mainly famous writers, editors, etc., which can attract attention and provide endorsement;
• Professional users: Influential PGC producers in the reading industry, their brand influence and professionalism can attract users, such as teams that provide "listening to books" content in the app;
• Contributing users: "experts", UGC producers who can produce high-quality content but do not have professional backgrounds, such as those in the NetEase Snail Reading App;
• Active users: Have a certain degree of activity and participation in the community, participate in discussions and interactions, but rarely independently produce long and high-quality UGC content;
• Ordinary users: They may browse community content, but they have low participation and less interactive behavior.

In the "small circle" community of WeChat Reading, celebrities and professional users are absent, and the proportion of contributing users is very small, most of which are active users and ordinary users.

However, based on the above division, different operating methods should be adopted for different users. WeChat Reading may try to invite book authors and famous editors to join, provide endorsement of the platform and content by holding exchange activities, conducting interviews or interacting with readers through posts, and attracting users' attention;

In addition, some influential PGC teams in the industry can also be introduced to output reading suggestions and book recommendations, and disseminate them in the form of articles or book lists.

For contributing users, they can strengthen their connection with the platform through various operating means, such as giving formal certificates, identity marks within the product, gifts around the product, etc., to encourage users to continue to create high-quality UGC content.

According to the 28th rule, the operation team should focus 80% of its energy on celebrities, professional users and contributing users who account for 20%.

For active users and ordinary users, the community mechanism is mainly used for incentives, which will be discussed in detail below.

(2) Content

In terms of the formulation of content sections, WeChat Reading has not yet opened the user establishment entrance, but the current circle is still mainly composed of large-scale books. The number of open-themed discussion circles is small, with only 21, and the richness of the theme module can be further improved.

In addition, since users entering the open discussion circle are likely to be interested in the theme of the circle, users can be provided with corresponding book lists in these circles, namely, "what books will be linked to this circle". After all, this not only encourages users to read by recommending books to users, but also provides topics for communication between users and promotes interaction within the community.

In solving the problem of user creative motivation, WeChat Reading has also provided some discussion topics in the "small circle". Users can add this topic to any circle for discussion. Click on the topic to view other users' posts.

The problem with the "Topic" function of WeChat Reading is that the topic introduction is relatively simple and not attractive enough. There are only 10-30 posts under most topics, and the user's participation is not high enough and the content update frequency is low.

Therefore, you can also refer to the "topic" functional design of the two competitors:

• Interspersing popular "topics" into the feed stream of "reading" tabs to attract user interaction, but pay attention to frequency and reduce the impact on user experience;
• Post "Daily/Weekly Topics" at a fixed frequency at a fixed time point, and polish the content to a certain extent. Some examples can be given and some rewards can be set to stimulate users' desire to participate;
• In the circle, users are supported to initiate topic discussions that match the theme of the circle, but there must be a filtering mechanism: for example, quantify the user's activity in the form of points, etc., and start the topic when reaching a certain threshold; or circle owners check the topics initiated by users, etc.

(3) Mechanism

The mechanism for optimizing the content ecology is mainly divided into high-quality content incentive mechanisms and low-quality content strike mechanisms.

Incentive for high-quality content: guide content creation and establish complete feedback rules.

What kind of content contribution the community wants users to contribute, it needs to guide in the corresponding direction, such as long articles, high interaction volume, etc., and can also explain the expected post content type (book reviews/views).

An editorial recommendation mechanism can also be introduced to recommend high-popular and high-quality posts, tilt the content distribution weight, and present it in the "small circle" homepage and "reading" tab feed stream, attracting ordinary users who have not participated in the circle discussion, and to some extent, it can also seize the time of light reading users.

The role of "editor" can also be assumed by the circle owners of each circle, but this requires the operation team to strictly screen the circle owners, establish a deeper connection with them, and guide and reward them to stimulate the management motivation of the circle owners. At the same time, it also requires certain restrictions on the circle owner's authority. For example, the circle owner can improve the posts, but cannot recommend them to the homepage feed stream.

In terms of feedback, it sets clear rewards based on interaction volume (fans, likes, comments) and editorial recommendations, and is disclosed to users.

Incentives include material incentives and spiritual incentives: material incentives can be free unlimited cards, book coins for a certain number of days, or monetization based on traffic (it is currently difficult to implement in WeChat reading communities); spiritual incentives include the number of fans, interactions, value recognition brought by editors, as well as the exposure and promotion of key resources inside and outside the app, etc.

Strike against low-quality content: Establish a complete review mechanism and user feedback process.

At present, the content review mechanism of WeChat Reading’s “small circle” is still incomplete. Common users post feedback on “many negative energy posts”, “illegal and irregular content”, and “advertising”.

Low-quality content can be defined, algorithmic models can be built to identify content quality, supplemented by manual review, and intercept low-quality content before it enters the public domain, which can also avoid "mand killing" caused by inaccurate algorithmic models.

In addition, in terms of content strategy, marketing information such as advertising and illegal and irregular information such as porn should be constrained and managed, and no distribution or account ban should be taken into account in the entire scenario;

Guide the tone of content, and limit the current and weight reduction operations can be carried out for content that does not convey positive value and does not trigger interaction.

In terms of user feedback, the reporting portal for posts in the "small circle" is extremely hidden.

There is no entry in the post details page. The user needs to exit the feed stream page and press the card where the post is located before a report floating window will pop up.

When the user chooses the reason for reporting, he directly prompts "The report is successful and the other party has been added to the blacklist", which is not fair to users who have been mistakenly touched or maliciously reported.

Therefore, a complete "user feedback-official review-handling of illegal content and feedback results to users" process should be established.

2. Optimize the "Reading Team" reading design

Currently, the WeChat Reading "Reading Team" has the setting of "Reading Tasks for the Week", which provides 3 book selections. When all members of the team read the same book for more than 30 minutes, they can get a 2-day unlimited card reward.

The author is confused about the design of the event. He speculated that the reason behind it was to attract traffic to designated books, extend users' reading time, and believed that the reading team was established based on strong social relationships and could create topics for social behavior.

It can be said that there is some rationality, but there are still some problems:

Users' reading tastes are inconsistent.

Although most of the users who form a reading team to strive for rewards are active users of the product, it is impossible to deduce that the players in the same team have the same reading preferences.

Therefore, it is impossible to guarantee that these three books can meet the needs of users, and the 30-minute threshold is too high for a book you don’t want to read, and reading itself is also a way to get points.

Therefore, it is speculated that many users tend to give up participating in the "common reading task this week" and instead read books that are interested in on their bookshelf, resulting in a low participation rate in the event;

How are books selected?

To take a step back, even if users in a reading team have similar reading tastes and common concerns about a certain topic, the currently recommended books are still not matched enough.

A general consensus is that although the development of recommendation algorithms has entered a relatively mature stage, users are still full of complaints. If AI chooses books, it is understandable that some problems arise; if artificially chooses books, what are the criteria based on?

If the design goal of this function is to extend the user's use of the product, there are other better ways to achieve it, and the above two problems can also be avoided.

Considering that the members of the reading team are mostly based on the strong social relationships of WeChat, that is, they are familiar with each other in real life, can communicate through WeChat, etc., and have common interests in certain specific fields, and may have the need to improve themselves and communicate and learn through reading together.

Therefore, the co-reading function can be designed, that is, after discussing with the team members, the team leader sets up a book with resources in the WeChat Reading City that everyone is interested in as the co-reading goal. Within a certain period of time, the team members can complete reading tasks of a certain length of time (such as reading for more than 30 minutes per person within 7 days currently set) and receive corresponding rewards.

In the later stages, this function can be configured in other aspects, such as supporting custom time periods, splitting reading goals, and sharing rewards for members who complete reading within the specified time.

VI. Conclusion

In general, WeChat Reading makes full use of WeChat’s huge user base and social relationship chain, and through in-depth communication with WeChat mini-programs, it explores diversified gameplay to encourage users to actively share, realize new user traffic, lost user recall and old user retention.

It follows the style tradition of the WeChat team, explores social interaction in detail and in-depth, and is more comprehensive and unique in the functional design of social attributes.

But on the other hand, compared with other products in the industry, the community operation is not mature enough, the incentive mechanism is not obvious enough, the community content review mechanism is not perfect enough, the user activity and UGC content quality are not high enough, and a good UGC ecosystem has not yet been formed.

At the same time, users have a lot of negative feedback on the content recommendation algorithm, and need further continuous optimization. Based on the research on products and the analysis of competitor functions, the author puts forward some humble opinions on product optimization at the end of the article.

Turning your attention to the industry, the mobile reading industry itself is favored by macro environments such as policy tilt and technological development. Users' reading habits have been established and their willingness to pay has been enhanced. There are also a number of excellent mobile reading products that have developed to a mature stage, with anticipated prospects.

Although the population and traffic dividends of mobile reading are gradually declining, WeChat Reading can continue to explore on the basis of clarifying its "reading + social" positioning, better apply social elements to the design of various functional points of the product, and find new growth curves and revenue opportunities.

Finally, may reading be the beacon for us to travel around the world.

Author: Pineapple Bao Classmate

Source: Pineapple bread classmate