Social product methodology: two or three things about product operation

How can operations create short-term user value and help products achieve long-term value? What are the corresponding operational means? With these two questions, please listen to me share with you slowly.

How to do product operation ? We can divide it into four steps.

Step 1: Clarify the purpose of the operation

We often talk about the "three axes of operation", which refers to attracting new customers , promoting activation and paying. But I understand it as a goal rather than a method. From the perspective of long-term product value, user retention is also one of the important goals of operations.

So what is user retention?

The author understands it as no move is better than a move. There is no specific purpose. It is enough to consider users from the bottom of your heart and get along with users like friends.

Therefore, there are four main types of operations :

1. Attract new customers;
2. Promote vitality;
3. Payment;
4. User retention.

For example, a new noodle restaurant opened downstairs in the community, and the long-term value of its products is "providing noodles that users love to eat." When the boss opens the business, he puts up lights and decorations, sets off firecrackers, and invites beautiful young ladies to stand at the door. This is a way to “attract new customers.” The first time you eat noodles, you can enjoy half price and get coupons, which is a "promotion". Get 200 off for your first recharge of 200, and enjoy member prices for some products when you get a membership card. This is "payment". The boss says hi when meeting you, remembers your taste preferences, and chats with you from time to time. This is user retention.

Step 2: Understand the principles of operational strategy

After clarifying the operational objectives, we need to sort out the operational strategies and develop a series of operational methods based on the operational strategies to implement them and achieve the goals. We can regard the operational strategy as the "Tao", the general outline and logic. The operation method is regarded as a "skill", a method, and actual combat. Tao is the body and technique is the use. You must first understand the outline of the operating strategy so that the planned operating methods can be sustainable and efficient.

We can divide the operational strategy into 2 parts :

1. Content operations ;
2. User operation .

We can understand content operation as producing and filtering content . Users come for product content, and only good product content can retain users. If you are a product like TikTok , how can you allow users to quickly browse to their favorite videos?

There are two core elements of excellent content management:

1. Short-term promotion of all content to be consumed . Algorithm recommendation? Active attention? Information flow display? Category navigation?
2. Cultivate a unique tone of content in the long term . Joke? science and technology? Literature and art?

The content operation strategy diagram is as follows:

Content Operation Strategy Diagram

We can understand user operation as attracting and retaining users. How to screen and retain target users ? How to gather users together to play together through activities? How to encourage users to pay and make them feel comfortable spending their money?

There are four core elements to excellent user operations: increasing revenue and reducing costs in the short term to attract and retain users as much as possible. Maintain and transfer payments in the long term, enhance the user's participation value, and encourage user payment.

The user operation strategy diagram is as follows:

User operation strategy diagram

Step 3: Refine your operational approach

Once the strategy is clear, it’s time to compete on the execution level. They all write an operation and promotion article. Good articles make people linger and applaud, "Wow, this soft article is so funny, I'll forward it." Bad articles make people close their eyes immediately.

After formulating the operation strategy, we can fill all the observed operation methods into the corresponding strategy into a table. Analyze how previous operation methods were implemented, summarize their advantages and continuously improve your own implementation capabilities in practice.

The table structure example is as follows:

Summary of Operation Methods

Here is a summary of the psychology behind paid activities:

1. 100 beautiful anchors unanimously recommend (leverage principle)
2. Share and win a Koi gift pack (material incentive)
3. Try your luck and win the grand prize (probabilistic event)
4. Limited-time recharge discounts (creating a sense of scarcity)
5. Top ranking event (to stimulate competition)
6. Open a mysterious gift package to get a special title (give users a chance to show off or be curious)
7. Childhood memory skin, heavy debut (create strong emotions & sense of identity)
8. Broadcast to the whole server, show yourself (give a sense of respect and being valued)
9. Monthly package is 88, annual package is 188 (creating a sense of value through comparison)

Step 4: Data-driven operations

In " Social Product Methodology (VIII): A Few Things About Data Analysis ", we have discussed in detail the significance of data analysis for product iteration. Since product operations are inseparable, their methodologies are the same: verifying the effectiveness of operations through data and guiding operational iterations .

In summary , the logic diagram of product operation is as follows:

Product operation logic diagram

Let me give you an example of a case I recently participated in : the operation of a social product topic plaza.

(1) Clarify the purpose of operation

The core purpose of the Topic Square is to promote activation and retain users, so that new users can consume high-quality content after logging into the APP, and old users have a platform to showcase themselves. Players can interact with each other, form social relationships, and improve retention .

（2）Understanding the principles of operational strategy

1. What are content attributes? Pictures, text.
2. What is the tone of the content? Love, scenery, food, these are all beautiful topics that young people like.
3. Where does the content come from? How can content production be sustainable? UGC , an official operation topic, content generated by users. Special titles will be awarded to outstanding content producers.
4. How is the content organized and presented? Information flow, mixed text and pictures, and 9-grid Weibo picture format.
5. How can content be more easily consumed by users? Sort by dual weights of likes and publishing time to ensure that high-quality content is visible first. Topic grouping makes it easier for users to browse specific topics. The official recommends high-quality posts, which will increase exposure weight.
6. How does content interact with users and spread? Posts support comments. Click on the poster's avatar to add friends and chat.

(3) Techniques for polishing operational methods

Because the content of the square belongs to UGC, the initial focus is on content initialization, attracting seed users , and motivating content producers.

How to operate Topic Plaza

(4) Data-driven operations

For the purpose of promoting activity, the data indicators we focus on in Topic Plaza are:

1. Average usage time per person to help judge content quality;
2. The average number of posts per day helps determine community atmosphere and incentives.

In view of the above data indicators, we will carry out the following optimizations in the later stage:

1. The algorithm's time weight is reduced, allowing high-quality posts to appear at the top for longer periods of time;
2. Added a pull-down refresh function to help users see new content more quickly;
3. Optimized post layout to make the "topic" name more prominent and the pictures more visually appealing;
4. Added topic recommendations to make high-quality topics more easily exposed;
5. Through topic expert activities, users are encouraged to create high-quality content.

After the optimization, the average usage time of each function increased by 50%, and the average number of posts per day increased by 20%. The data can also guide us in the next step of operational optimization. Such as the secondary dissemination of high-quality content, the regularization of topic activities, etc.

summary

The essence of operations is to create short-term user value and help products improve long-term value. We must learn to use various psychological knowledge to connect users, set up a game, and let everyone involved have fun. This is the value of operation. In the current era of consumption upgrading, money can’t buy happiness. As long as we are good at discovering users' pain points and amplifying them through leverage, we will be able to make users willing to buy and have fun.

Source: Xiaoqiang Joey