7000 words, predicting the new media operation trends in 2019

From 2016 to this year, it is the third year for new media industry trend forecasting. In these three years, several points can be clearly felt:

1) New tracks have emerged. In 2016, knowledge payment and short videos were just concepts, and the mini program was still called "application number" when it was launched.

2) On the surface, the industry is becoming more and more anxious, but in the long run, every time there is anxiety there is an opportunity. The rise of companies such as Youshu and Dedao occurred 16 years later.

3) New media has gone far beyond the connotation of media and has extended into a channel or platform. Companies like Xiaodaka and Xiaoniangao are completely built on the WeChat ecosystem.

It is difficult to predict the general trend over the next three years. The prediction of long-term trends requires a combination of factors such as population, social culture, and technology.

Therefore, the annual trend is more inclined to predict small trends. Ray Dalio, the author of "Principles", once said: "History always repeats itself. To understand the present, you need to understand the past first ." Therefore, this article will also be based on some events in 2018, and the prediction method is more like a "random walk."

The overall view is that after last year's dormancy, the new media industry will usher in a second spring in 2019. Good content, good operations, and good platforms will usher in a wave of value return.

The structure of this article is as follows. It is expected to take 20-30 minutes to read.

content

1. Content entrepreneurship is sometimes also a "high-risk industry", which has been fully verified in the past two years. To create content, you must first have values, and you must also be ready with "redundant backups" at all times . You cannot put all your fans in just one basket.

2. There is actually no “bad money driving out good money” on the content supply side , it’s just that there are not many people and institutions that can produce good money. Previously, it was the veteran media people who controlled the voice of this industry, but the high-quality stock on the supply side has been fully tapped. This year, more newcomers will emerge in the industry, and the model is still that the veterans lead the new.

3. With the tilt of platform policies and the upgrading of user reading demands, some long content will be revived . Although its production cost is high and the cycle is long, its social value and benefits will gradually increase. Like the tragedy of Shouye’s vaccine, there will be more and more cases of Dingxiang Doctor beating Quanjian. However, long content will not see a big explosion until problems such as pseudo-originality and plagiarism are completely solved.

4. With the decrease in advertisers, more media companies will transform this year. There are three evolutionary directions for content companies. Advertising is a natural business model, but under the CPM payment logic of advertisers, imagination is limited. GQ's revenue last year was 200 million yuan, which is almost the revenue ceiling for pure media companies. Content companies either evolve into product companies, like Xin Shixiang launched Water Drop Reading. Or it could be an e-commerce company, "Yi Tiao" has fully transformed into an e-commerce company. The transformation among the three forms depends on the genes and courage of the founding team.

5. IP is the trend, and how to ensure the stability of IP will still be a major problem. The name change from "Hong Pangpang" under Mimi Meng to "Li LiLiLi" may not only evaporate the number of readings, but also the users' trust.

6. From the perspective of user volume, an important reason why short videos can beat live streaming is the higher content efficiency per square meter, that is, the user's excitement point per unit time. From 1 hour to 15 seconds, short videos allow users to secrete more dosamine in a short period of time. However, the information that 15 seconds can carry is limited after all, and the user's excitement threshold is constantly being raised. This year, there will be more time periods such as 1 minute, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, etc., and short vertical screen dramas may become popular.

7. The videoization of content is an emerging trend . Although it is a trend, the difficulty of video production increases exponentially compared to text creation. There is a shortage of video talent in the entire industry, and the supply side has not kept up. Not all companies have the ability to produce videos, so tool and service providers have plenty of opportunities.

8. More and more attention will be paid to the protection of original content . The wild growth period of self-media copying has passed, but it is still unrealistic to deal with more advanced plagiarism by algorithms in a short time. What is being tested behind this is the platform's evaluation mechanism. But it is expected that more media will standardize citations, just like writing a paper, where the source needs to be indicated at the end.

9. Content ethics will be further put on the agenda . The production of hits for the sake of hits will put a greater test on platform supervision as to whether the content is true or deliberately exaggerated.

1. The Vlog format is currently popular in small circles, but due to the limitations of the equipment and difficulty of producing content, it is currently more like a "video version of Douban". If it wants to penetrate into the mass circle, it still needs localized improvements.

11. Media convergence is not just about simply copying large-screen content to small screens, but also about subverting content. For some traditional TV stations and radio stations, the pressure to transform this year will still be very high, and more challenges will come from within.

flow:

1. Every year people talk about the decline of dividends, but in fact dividends still exist every year . Bonuses are divided into platform bonuses, gameplay bonuses, model bonuses, etc. The platform's dividends may fade as entrants flock in, but the dividends from the gameplay will continue to emerge through micro-innovations because human nature remains unchanged. For example, in the testing category, WeChat has been blocked since 2013, but it still produces hot products every year.

2. The private domain traffic that has been very popular this year is essentially an issue of 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 .

3. Last year’s Taobao boom will be even more intense this year, but the barbaric and crude distribution system will face stricter supervision this year.

4. Offline traffic is larger than expected but also difficult to do. This year will be another explosive year for offline customer acquisition . More online companies are embracing offline customer acquisition, similar to Fan Deng Reading Club, Yitiao, etc. After tasting the sweetness of the BD model, more and more companies will choose direct operation.

5. More offline businesses are also beginning to wake up and complete the online layout of offline traffic. The OMO model will become more and more mature, similar to "Happy Cake". Of course, more new "infrastructures" will appear in offline stores, and body fat scales and fan increase will complete a new evolution.

6. The traditional funnel model for acquiring customers will fail , as its essence is to screen users and constantly wash them. The fission based on purchasing users will become the focus again. Its essence is users bringing users and finding incremental growth from the existing stock.

7. The granularity of traffic aggregation will become finer . Personal accounts and social networks will become the main battlefields for corporate traffic and conversion. Official accounts will become publishing channels, serving the former two.

8. Based on the in-depth development of vertical social chains, there is still great opportunity to strengthen internal social connection points. Last year, the probability theory “Heartbeat Experiment” H5 received 48 million impressions in 48 hours and gained 500,000 followers.

9. When making predictions for 2018, we said that service accounts have strong product attributes, and new ways of playing have emerged recently, which will lead to a strong outbreak. In 2018, service accounts did experience a strong growth, but due to the indiscriminate sending of template messages, the reading data of service accounts generally declined. WeChat is expected to further crack down on the abuse of template messages this year.

10. The community will experience further development, but it will not follow the previous logic of simple fission. An orderly, scenario-based form of community organization is likely to explode . Community group buying is just one of the activated categories.

11. WeChat’s crackdown on personal accounts was said to have a “dead water plan” last year, which blocked accounts from the source of registration. However, sources such as overseas registrations are still difficult to block. This year may be the last small wave of benefits for running a personal account.

12. Several common fission gameplays last year (cited in the PS book "Advanced Operations") will appear in another form this year. Move to better channels or newer formats. The WeChat Moments check-in method that became popular last year, just as Zhang Xiaolong said in his speech, although users have more and more friends, the check-in time in WeChat Moments has remained at half an hour. The effect of check-in in Moments will further decline this year, and the form will shift to a combination of social networks + mini programs.

Figure: Several common fission methods by Huohuoshu "Advanced Operations"

13. Traffic downloads for overseas applications are still very cheap, and they are still in a bonus period in the Middle East, India, etc. However, the overseas growth logic is basically buying volume, and it is difficult to play fission like in China.

14. The essence of Internet traffic is still the attention economy, but what is more fundamental is the population . The new traffic dividend is often contained in the generational changes of the population. This year, those born in the 2000s are 19 years old, those born in the 1980s are 39 years old, those born in the 1970s are 49 years old, and those born in the 1960s are 59 years old. Instead of always trying to please Generation Z, it is better to serve the middle-class generation born in the 1970s and the growing group of elderly people.

Figure: Changes in median population in major emerging countries

15. Last year, several leading self-media outlets became micro-media, but the results were mixed. Enterprises have completed the accumulation from 0-1 or 10 on WeChat, but if they want to achieve 10-100, APPization will still be the trend this year .

16. Tencent’s bans are not only policy-oriented, but sometimes they are just like the “two-dimensional foil” of the singer in The Three-Body Problem, which is very arbitrary. Tencent should do better this year in terms of how to standardize the management of violations and handle them equally.

Monetization:

1. From a macro perspective, knowledge payment will continue to grow rapidly this year . According to iResearch data, there were 698 million mobile payment users in China in 2017, and approximately 188 million of them have tried content payment, accounting for 26.9% of the total paying users. The growth last year should have been even greater. According to Roger's innovation diffusion curve, knowledge payment is still in the demand-driven stage. From the perspective outside the Fifth Ring Road, there is still much room for development in knowledge payment.

Figure: Roger's innovation diffusion curve

2. Knowledge payment integrates education, publishing, and media industries. When considering knowledge payment, there are two and a half rates, one is the course completion rate, and the other is the repurchase rate. The other half rate is the k value. Last year was an explosive year for the knowledge payment industry, but many companies only focused on the K value, and some even touched the red line of the third-level distribution. As a result, some fields have been ruined by knowledge payment, and they are expected to be reshaped this year.

3. Knowledge payment will be separated in the future. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's. Or turn to pure interest, or prefer digital publishing. Or you can just switch to the education industry and provide good services.

4. The number of micro-businesses is expected to surge this year, and they will be organized in new business forms. Community e-commerce is just the beginning.

5. This year, more advertisers will prefer performance-based advertising , which is also a return to the essence of business. After the dividends from public account placement have been washed away in several popular sectors this year, mid-sized companies that rely solely on advertising for monetization will have a hard time this year.

6. The membership system will become the mainstream. The core logic of the membership system is to increase consumers’ silent costs through prepayment and improve their ARPU value.

7. We have also entered what Kenichi Ohmae calls the M-shaped society. In the future, there will be two obvious trends in monetization products. One is the cost-effective route, that is, the functional attribute level. There is also a spiritual pursuit, which is the luxury route.

WeChat

1. About the official account

1. Many people say that official accounts have been completely replaced, but the end of growth does not mean extinction, but rather a slow growth into the stock era. Official accounts are still the best content distribution platform.

2. Last year, official accounts underwent a series of dazzling reforms. Judging from the big data, it’s just like what Zhang Xiaolong said: It hasn’t gotten better, nor has it gotten worse. This year, the official account team is expected to continue reforming. The pace may not be as fast as last year, but it may be larger. The core will still be aimed at empowering creators .

3. There are always two groups of people on the Internet, one group spends most of their time saving time, and the other group prefers to kill time. Taking reading as an example, the former is typically like Jike, and the latter is like Qutoutiao. The “Haokan” launched by WeChat is more like a time-saving tool.

4. The emergence of "Haokan" has moved the sharing path from the Moments to a new module. It can undoubtedly amplify the dissemination of high-quality articles, but because of its sharing and display mechanism, and the fact that users have not yet formed habits, the effectiveness of "good-looking" in boosting the overall reading pie remains questionable . More revisions are expected this year, and some very stimulating actions will appear.

5. WeChat has evolved into A/B side . One side is serious social interaction, namely the circle of friends. The other side is easy social interaction, namely "video status". However, whether users can switch between the two states instantly requires several major revisions to the video dynamics.

6. Private messaging is more like the function of an address book. Groups, Moments, Haokan and Video Status are four of the larger social scenes in WeChat. Because the time people spend using WeChat will not increase, the four modules will basically grow and shrink. This year, we are more optimistic about the increase in usage time of groups and "video status" .

7. Last year, WeChat launched a strong crackdown on accounts in certain fields. Of course, the trend is from "menstrual aunt"-style governance to regular governance.

8. One hundred million people on WeChat have opened their Moments to the public for only three days. On the one hand, there is social pressure, and on the other hand, users are more concerned about privacy. The function of leaving messages to friends on public accounts was launched in WeChat 6.6.6 in 2018, but was quietly taken offline two months later. In the future, all revisions of WeChat will probably be more cautious regarding user privacy.

9. After experiencing a small exodus last year, the overall activity of public accounts will remain the same this year, which is not necessarily a bad thing for the entire ecosystem. The power-law distribution of accounts is also the final result under a decentralized state . What is more important for WeChat is to empower public accounts through other functions such as mini-programs and retain mid-level accounts.

Figure: From Weixiaobao’s official account reading report in December 2018

2. About Mini Programs and Others

1. By the end of 2018, the total number of mini programs exceeded 600 million, with 230 million monthly active users. In fact, if we look closely at the user portraits, mini programs have great potential in terms of overall user penetration (age groups/cities).

"2019 WeChat Mini Program User Behavior Research Report" by Goose User Research Institute

2. Data from many companies last year proved that running a public account and running a mini program are two completely different things, requiring completely different capabilities. There is not much point in creating a mini program just for the sake of creating it. We still need to get back to business.

3. In a sense, mini programs have entered the "stock era" . The top few on the list have always been controlled by giants. Tools, e-commerce, and games have already been run. It is obvious that WeChat is very patient this time and has eliminated speculators. It is expected that mini programs will continue to empower developers this year, and more focus will still be on lowering the production threshold to allow more players to enter.

4. After a series of crackdowns on misleading behaviors by WeChat last year, mini program entrepreneurship will enter a more rational era. The discussion on retention has come to an end, and more attention is paid to how to monetize or transfer traffic.

5. At the same time, many companies that have engaged in fission will return to the H5 era this year. The "Face Reading Research Institute" that was very popular last year has been thriving after being removed from the mini program and returning to H5.

6. This year, the model that investors used to value mini programs based solely on their DAU has become invalid , because mini programs’ DAU is more unstable than that of apps, and can fall very quickly.

7. With the strengthening of WeChat search, WSO will become a hot topic this year. In-depth search of content and services within the mini-program may be a hidden traffic easter egg for WeChat.

8. The sword of Damocles still hangs over the mini program, which is the path dependence on the underlying system. Since the iOS virtual payment was taken offline in May last year, the relationship between WeChat and Apple seems to be at a stalemate, and it is unknown when it will be restored.

9. You can still try several other mini programs this year. Alipay's mini program is suitable for merchants. Baidu's mini program is open source to other platforms, so you can try traffic distribution. Toutiao's mini program mainly focuses on content and to C products.

7. Enterprise WeChat has integrated functions such as mini-programs and WeChat red envelopes. Except for the Moments, other functions are basically complete. Because it lags far behind DingTalk, it will undoubtedly catch up this year. The combination of WeChat for Business and the functions of WeChat itself will bring a wave of small dividends.

8. CRM systems for public accounts, personal accounts, and communities will see a wave of popularity this year.

ByteDance

1. Toutiao’s community building has been very successful, and social networking is one of its most important ambitions this year. However, Toutiao was not successful in retaining fans last year, and will continue to try this year.

2. From the perspective of Douyin, last year it not only successfully harvested users, but also successfully harvested a lot of self-media. Because the vast majority of companies do not make money on TikTok. The essence is that under the strong algorithm distribution logic of the enterprise, fans on Douyin still belong to half of the public domain traffic.

3. Douyin is unwilling to be pipelined, and its control over enterprises is far stronger than that of Weibo. The Star Map platform has forced many MCNs to submit. However, there is no supporting facilities similar to the official account. If Douyin does not change its product form or traffic distribution, it will accelerate the exodus of companies.

4. The low-hanging fruits on TikTok have been picked , and PPT numbers, AE numbers, etc. began to decline in the second half of 2018. In the future, more real people will be needed, and better planning and topic selection will be required, and videos will become more and more professional.

5. MCN agencies will see a massive reshuffle this year, and being able to quickly replicate IP will be the basic rule for survival.

6. The battle of the short video community has basically come to an end, with Tencent's heroes fighting Lu Bu. Although Weishi and other platforms can attract a large number of users in the short term through the subsidy flow, professional content organizations will definitely not be able to compete with subsidy companies through the VV/UV method. In the long run, bad money will drive out good money, and the platform will not be able to form an independent ecosystem.

7. Duoshan is more like a derivative of Douyin. If it wants to evolve, it needs to get rid of its dependence on "private messages" itself. Duoshan is estimated to play the role of ByteDance's wingman. A larger product matrix is ​​still to come, so it can be the focus of attention this year.

8. In addition to social networking, you can also pay attention to the internationalization of Toutiao. Its overseas expansion has been very successful. Relying on large-scale purchases, it has quickly occupied the top position in many countries. However, dealing with user privacy and the complex political environment abroad remains a challenge.

9. Xigua Video will enter the long video variety show market, but it will mainly seize the market share of Youku, iQiyi and Tencent Video, and will have little impact on the total time spent by users.

other

1. The commercialization of Kuaishou may be a good opportunity this year. Compared with Douyin, Kuaishou's traffic is more like private domain traffic. The like-to-comment ratio on Douyin is about 100:1, while the like-to-comment ratio on Kuaishou is 20:1. From this perspective, Douyin is more like stage logic, while Kuaishou is more like another circle of friends.

2. Weibo's monthly active users did not decrease due to the arrival of TikTok. On the contrary, the usage time increased. It was not because Weibo became stronger, but because users developed the habit of watching videos. Weibo’s top 700,000 followers will continue to convert to video this year.

3. The world has suffered from WeChat for a long time, but compared with users, entrepreneurs have suffered more. In fact, what users are fleeing from is not the relationship chain, but attention . Therefore, the success rate of simply grabbing the WeChat relationship chain is very low.

4. The one who defeats WeChat may not be on WeChat’s list, and it is likely to come from a cross-platform attack. In the form of a mobile phone, the address book is the fastest and most stable way to connect, unless you switch to another platform and a new connection method emerges.

5. We tend to overestimate the development in one or two years and underestimate the changes in the next decade. Although the VR boom has passed, with the advent of 5G, the ability and speed of loading data have greatly increased. It is unknown whether new devices such as VR will make a comeback. At that time, new media will usher in a new era.

1. The development of new media has gone through three stages so far. Stage 1.0 belongs to the editing era, and good content will naturally spread. Stage 2.0 is the operational era, where everyone focuses on becoming fans and building social relationships. In the 3.0 stage, with the emergence of mini programs and the cooperation with social groups, new media can appear as a platform business independently.

The vast majority of companies’ understanding of new media is still at the 2.0 stage, and many traditional companies are even still in the 1.0 era, believing that new media is just a simple channel. If you want to do well in new media, you must first upgrade your cognition.

2. For some companies, it is more difficult to change the new media from BCD (Boss Centered Design) to UCD (User Centered Design) thinking.

3. For a single growth strategy that lasts for more than half a year, the traffic effect will decrease. Just like what Silicon Valley growth guru Andrew Chen said, “The more you use it, the worse it gets.” In addition to the gold water pipe, companies should always have silver water pipes ready.

4. The key to the bonus of gameplay and mode is to quickly magnify it in a short period of time. You don’t have to be the first to try it and accelerate as fast as the platform allows.

5. Why can some companies maintain high growth or find the second curve? As Chen Liang of Meituan said: a company’s ability to engage in new business is essentially an overflow of organizational capabilities . Therefore, many times, the growth of a company is not as simple as just coming up with a plan; it may require adjustments to the organizational structure.

6. This year is still a big opportunity for traditional offline enterprises, and new media empowerment is gradually moving offline, which will usher in a new bonus period.

7. In the discussion about traffic, growth was the main topic in the first half of this year, and retention was the main topic in the second half. The logic behind the change in topic is that it is difficult for companies to make money. The previous crude practice of spending money to pile up data is a thing of the past . The key is to be honestly data-driven, do a good job of PMF in the early stage, and fine-tune operations in the later stage.

8. Pure traffic operation will become a thing of the past. Layered, graded and phased operations for users are no longer a trend. If it is not done well, elimination is ongoing.

1. The concept of growth hacking has been overused. For new media people, the simplest criterion is to create revenue for the company through new media . If you can attract 100,000 followers by writing articles, you are also a growth hacker.

2. The skill acquisition level does not seem to be a big problem. For example, the gameplay of community fission can be learned in 3 days, but one must always cultivate the feel for it. "I have nothing special to do, just practice makes perfect." You should know that when the fission coefficient k differs by 0.1, the results may be very different.

Figure: Differences in fission effects under different K coefficients by "Advanced Operations"

3. The basis of cognitive differences is information asymmetry. More and more small circles will be formed, and we must learn to absorb effective content.

4. New media people must not only understand the techniques but also the principles. From knowing how to do something to understanding the logic behind it. Just like mastering the "Tao, Fa, Shu, Qi and Shi" explained in "Advanced Operations".

5. Companies will have more and more demands on new media professionals. Maybe when you first come in, you are working on content, and later you transform into working on growth. For new media people, growth needs to be T-shaped, that is, they need to have a specialized field while also having general knowledge.

6. When developing growth or content, don’t think about making a splash right from the start. Many real masters have no one trick up their sleeves . They slowly and continuously form their own reinforcement loops to achieve exponential growth.

In his book Outbreak, Barabasi mentioned the view that 93% of human behavior is predictable, while the remaining 7% that cannot be predicted changes the world.

There is no doubt that this year will be another year of both challenges and opportunities for new media. I hope everyone can go through the cycle, discover the "new dividends", and become the 7% of people who change their field.

Source: Long Gong Huo Huo (net-talk)