As the number of users changes, Douyin ’s product positioning has also correspondingly changed to “Douyin, recording a beautiful life”. In the scenario where there will be no large-scale growth in the number of users in the future and external competition continues, in which direction should TikTok develop?
Douyin experienced explosive growth in 2018, with daily active users in China exceeding 150 million and monthly active users exceeding 300 million. Especially during this year's Spring Festival, the number of daily active users of Douyin experienced a "surge", rising from less than 40 million to nearly 70 million. Douyin's main user group has increased from the early 18 to 24 years old to 24 to 30 years old, and the proportion of users in this age group has now exceeded 40%.
The following analysis report will use a progressive analysis method to analyze step by step how Douyin meets the needs of different users after its popularity .
1. Product Overview
1.1 Product Experience Environment
1.2 Product Introduction
Tik Tok is a social software that focuses on 15s creative music short videos . Users can use this software to select songs, shoot music short videos , and create their own works. The software was launched in September 2016. In just two years, Douyin's daily active users in China exceeded 150 million, and its monthly active users exceeded 300 million. ( Data source : Douyin public conference in June 2018)
1.3 Product Positioning
Positioning: Douyin short video, a short video sharing platform designed to help the general public express themselves and record their beautiful lives
Slogan : From starting worship here to recording a beautiful life
Exploration period: TikTok was launched on September 26, 2016. It was initially positioned as a music creative short video app for the new generation, with video length often limited to 15 seconds. Young people tend to follow new trends and are willing to try new things. In the early days, a clear and definite positioning as "trendy", "cool" and "technical" is easier to attract the first batch of loyal fans.
Growth period: As product functions gradually improved, Douyin began to focus on operations , and the number of users saw a substantial increase. The age range of Douyin's main user group has increased from 18 to 24 years old in the early days to 25 to 30 years old. With the rapid growth of users, the content is also shifting towards a more mainstream and diversified direction.
Positioning comparison:
During the exploration stage of Douyin, accurately targeting specific groups of people is conducive to attracting the first batch of fans, and these fans are young and willing to try. If success can be achieved with this part of users, it will be very likely to be fully promoted . As the user base expanded, Douyin appropriately adjusted its positioning to adapt to the needs of more users and completed the transformation from verticalization to platformization.
2. Users, Scenarios, and Requirements
2.1 Target User Group Profile
In September 2017, the Douyin team advertised:
"85% of Douyin users are under 24 years old, and the main influencers and users are basically born after 1995 or even 2000."
Data as of August 2018 shows that 83% of the user group is under 35 years old, with the proportions of people in the three age groups of under 24, 25-30 years old, and 31-35 years old being similar. Douyin's main user group has increased from young users under 24 years old to 25-35 years old. As the target user group expands, demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and region will affect their content preferences and scenarios for using the product.
2.2 User Segmentation Target Group Characteristics
According to user characteristics, they can be divided into advertisers, platform big V type, celebrity internet celebrity type, life sharing type, and viewing lurking type. They may be both consumers and creators of content.
Advertisers: Focus on commercial value. As a platform with very large traffic , Douyin naturally attracts many businesses to place advertisements on the platform. They are more concerned about the conversion effect of advertising, whether it is delivered to the target audience, click-through rate , etc.
Big V type of platform: on the one hand, it accumulates fans, and on the other hand, it focuses on traffic monetization and commercial value. This type of users includes a group of KOLs who have invested heavily or have been attracted by the platform’s fame. They often bring their own traffic and have a dedicated team responsible for scripts, shooting, and post-production, and can produce popular and high-quality works. Don’t rely on Tik Tok as a video editing tool and publish the same content on multiple platforms. They will also spend time on operating and maintaining fans, enhancing their own value and having the ability to monetize traffic. Such as: street interviews, talk shows.
Niche Internet Celebrity Type: Users who have a strong desire to be recommended and show their desire to be noticed. This type of user already has a certain degree of fame in the Douyin circle and has accumulated a lot of loyal fans. They have a specific hobby or a clear theme. The videos they shoot basically revolve around their own interests or a certain theme. They can create their own memes. The video shooting quality is high, the topic is hot, and they can shoot popular videos. Such as: retro Hong Kong style, humor and comedy, beauty experts, and trendy matching.
Sharing lifestyle: entertain yourself and take videos to record your life. This type of users are mostly trend-following users and are representatives of mid-level users. I like to record food, scenery, interesting things in life, and follow videos that have already gone viral. Love to follow trends and hot spots. There are no fixed fans, the quality of videos varies, and there is no specific theme.
Watch the diving type: kill fragmented time. The largest base must be those who are unknown and are consuming content. This type of user does not have a strong desire to express themselves or be noticed, they just want to kill time and have fun. They bring huge traffic and potential economic benefits to the platform.
Based on the above different types of users, we can find out the different scenarios and different needs of their product use.
3. Product Usability
3.1 Functional structure
We have sorted out the functional structure of the Douyin product, and marked in front of each function the number of steps required to open Douyin. We have also added a red star mark in front of pop-up pages that do not jump to other pages. In the process of sorting out, I have two deep feelings:
Content presentation with the shortest path: When you open TikTok, the homepage recommendation is an immersive short video playback page. You only need to open the APP to see the content. Common operations such as following users, liking, commenting, and forwarding will not jump to other pages and will be completed on the same page. The division of functional levels is also relatively reasonable. Key functions such as viewing updates posted by people you follow, viewing content in the same city, watching live broadcasts , etc. will not require more than three steps to present content on the pages.
Good content closed loop: Although Douyin now has more functions and different levels, at the end of the right structure, you can basically jump to the user's homepage, topic page, and music page, and these pages finally flow to the immersive short video playback page. This ensures that no matter which level you go to in Douyin, you can always find content that interests you.
3.2 Product Logic
3.2.1 Flow of users and data
Users are mainly divided into three categories: advertisers, content creators, and content consumers. Corporate users are advertisers, and individual users will switch between content creators and content consumers. The three are connected through the short video content created on the platform.
Content creators: By creating and publishing short video content on the platform, they can attract the attention, forwarding, likes, and comments of content consumers. Content creators can interact with content consumers in the comment area.
Content consumers: Receive short video content published by content creators recommended by the platform, and can interact with content creators and other content consumers in the comment area. At the same time, you can also see short advertising videos released by advertisers recommended by the platform and establish connections with them.
Advertisers: publish short video advertising content on the platform, which is then accurately delivered to content consumers to establish connections with them.
3.2.2 Short Video Business Logic
As a content social platform, it is a reasonable choice to set the intersection of business processes on the short video page. When users consume the same content, they interact with the publisher and other viewers in the comment section.
3.3 Key pages and interactions
3.3.1 Video Creation
Start shooting quickly: When you enter the video creation function, the first page is the shooting page. Just click on "shoot" to start shooting immediately. In earlier versions, the first step was to select music, and if you wanted to start shooting directly, you had to click one more time. This change is also in line with the change in Douyin's product positioning, from carefully shot music short videos to recording a beautiful life.
Fully functional: The shooting page provides many functions, the commonly used ones are shooting speed, beauty filter, segmented countdown shooting, mirror flip, etc. What’s more interesting is that the settings will be saved after the beauty function is turned on, so you don’t have to readjust them every time you turn it on. For users, “the moment you take a photo, it’s beautiful”, which can greatly improve their willingness and experience in taking photos. Post-production also provides the functions of adding special effects and cutting music, which are relatively simple and easy to use.
Fun ways to play: Douyin also provides many interesting ways to play. You can choose many special effects that combine with scenes and character actions in the props, such as: "Sichuan Opera Face Changing", "Shiba Inu Headgear", "Open Mouth to Catch Fruit", "Rain Control Technique" and other interesting ways to play. Even if the scene at the time is not so interesting, the fun of the video with these props is greatly improved, and the willingness to shoot is also increased.
3.3.2 Home Page
Immersive design: When in wifi mode, as soon as you open TikTok and enter the homepage, the recommended short video content will play automatically. On the interface, the short video content fills the entire screen, and all buttons and texts on the top, bottom and sides are uniformly designed in white to reduce interference with the video content.
Interaction allows users to focus: if you find the video content interesting, you can double-click the screen or click the button to like it. If you don’t like the video content, you can just swipe up or down to switch the video content. Clicking on comment or share will not jump out of the page, but will just pop up a page from the bottom. These designs do not make users leave the homepage recommendation page, allowing users to focus more on the short video content.
Recommendation mechanism: The interaction of swiping up to switch to the next video is very smooth. The simpler the logic, the more powerful the recommendation algorithm will be needed to support it. If the user switches between several videos in a row that interest him, the experience will be very bad. Massive content and excellent recommendation algorithms make users more sticky.
The above three pages are all pages that jump from the home page. Their interactions are different from the immersive short video playback on the home page. They all aggregate and arrange the content in a waterfall flow manner, providing users with more choices for the content they want to watch.
In different types of aggregation, the page framework has different designs:
Same city: aggregation based on geographical location. The local page includes short videos and live broadcasts based on geographic location. One screen displays approximately 3-4 contents, and a maximum of three lines of text will be displayed. The amount of information is moderate because the aggregated content is close to the user's life and the user is interested in it.
Hot searches: aggregation centered around interests (topics, music). On the hot search page, you can see the popularity of the topic by viewing short videos classified by different topics. Three topics can be displayed on one screen, and 3-4 short video contents can be displayed under each topic. On the topic page and music page, nine contents can be displayed on one screen, and the amount of information is relatively large. Because the quality of this type of aggregated videos varies greatly but the contents are relatively similar, more choices are provided to users.
Live broadcast: People-centered aggregation. The live broadcast function has been online for almost a year, but the entrance is still only open to two locations: the homepage recommendation page and the top of the follow page. The qualification application threshold is also relatively high, and there is no show gift list. Users who are followed will be displayed separately next to the popular live broadcast entrance button. Rather than monetization, it focuses more on filling the social gap between anchors and fans in short videos. Nine live broadcast room entrances are displayed under the popular live broadcast page, with a large amount of information for users to choose from.
These types of aggregation pages ultimately guide different users to find their favorite short videos.
3.3.3 Attention
From the perspective of page flow, the homepage is more complicated because it aggregates content at many different levels in order to allow users to find content that they may be interested in. However, the focus page is mainly for better interaction between content publishers and content consumers, so the design of the page frame is also quite distinctive.
Guide interaction: The follow page is laid out in a waterfall flow format similar to " WeChat Moments ", and the layout of short video content will be relatively large, with only one video displayed on one screen. The interactive area is below the video. This design allows content consumers to interact with content publishers more conveniently, while also allowing them to read updates posted by people they follow more smoothly and quickly.
Recommended to follow: People who may be interested are placed in the waterfall flow of the follow page. This design is also relatively reasonable and has a higher connection rate. When you have read all the updates of the users you follow, your willingness to follow new users will also increase.
Recommendation algorithm sorting: Relying on the recommendation algorithm, the waterfall flow content you follow is not simply arranged by time dimension. The content posted by the user you follow but have not read will also be ranked higher. For publishers, this allows them to more effectively utilize existing fans to increase the popularity of their works. For content consumers, it is also more convenient to see the past updates of new users.
3.4 Iteration Path
Exploration period (v1.0.0-v1.3.7)
In the six months since Douyin was launched in September 2016, its popularity has not changed much. The exploration phase was mainly about exploring the product positioning and user needs. Generate a hot word weight graph for the version update log during this period:
The more prominent directions of version iteration at this stage are briefly analyzed:
New features & improved experience: During this stage, new shooting-related features have been continuously added, such as new filters, stickers, etc. Improve video clarity, playback smoothness, up and down scrolling smoothness, and loading smoothness. In the early stages of product exploration, Douyin did not conduct marketing promotions vigorously, but first polished the product. Each update of the early version added many new features and continuously improved the user experience .
Share and attract new members : search for friends in the address book, invite QQ and Weibo friends (v1.1.0); support sharing to Meipai (1.2.0). During this stage, we improved the entry point for sharing to other platforms and continued to acquire the first batch of users.
Name change: A.me was changed to Douyin short video to accurately position itself and make it more down-to-earth and more in line with the brand image.
Growth period (v1.4.0-v1.7.8)
During this stage, the number of Douyin users entered a period of rapid growth. In addition to continuing to improve the basic functions of the product, it also attached great importance to operation and promotion , and added a lot of functions to help with operation and promotion.
Generate a hot word weight graph for the version update log during this period:
The more prominent directions of version iteration at this stage are briefly analyzed:
Improve basic functions : continue to add new special effects, filters, beauty, and 3D sticker effects to continue to improve the shooting experience.
Operation and promotion: During this phase, we increased our operations and promotion, sponsoring multiple variety shows such as The Rap of China and Happy Camp . We also added many new gameplays such as the Million Heroes live quiz, dance machine, TikTok stories, AR camera, and New Year red envelopes. With repeated hot marketing , the number of users continues to grow. At the same time, new users are guided to participate in various interesting gameplays to promote retention .
Mature stage (v1.7.9-present)
The number of users has grown to a certain scale and has entered a mature stage. At this stage, Douyin no longer focuses on quickly launching new features and gameplay, but instead repositions itself as "recording a better life" to meet the different needs of more different types of users and achieve commercial monetization.
The more prominent directions of version iteration at this stage are briefly analyzed:
Optimize experience and fix bugs: At this stage, we do not pursue launching more new features faster to widen the gap with other competitors, but focus more on the experience of existing features and fixing bugs.
Create a closed-loop community: Improve the private messaging function to support emojis and voice messages; support personal page background images. At present, Douyin users are more focused on consuming content, and the relationships between users are very weak. Faced with the blockade of Weibo and WeChat , locking users in their own community is the best way to deal with it. In the future, they may continue to improve and explore functions in this area to truly form their own community closed loop.
Layout of business model : open advertising positions , mainly including information flow ads , splash screen ads, sticker ads, and customized challenges; launch the Star Map platform to match advertising cooperation between business owners and influencers, and take a commission from them; launch the Dou+ content marketing tool, where content publishers can pay to purchase more page views and promotions; influencers can add product information to videos after activating the shopping cart function.
4. Product Market Analysis
4.1 External Competition
Among the monthly independent devices of short video industry apps in September 2018, Douyin Short Video and Kuaishou belonged to the first tier, Xigua Video and Huoshan Video belonged to the second tier. Among the four products in the first and second echelons, except Kuaishou, Douyin Short Video, Xigua Video and Huoshan Video are all products of ByteDance.
4.1.1 Challenging the old overlord
Challenge of user volume: As a long-established leader in short video, Kuaishou has not seen much growth in the number of monthly independent devices in the past year. The reason why Kuaishou became popular faster is because it is more down-to-earth, but as Douyin's users move to lower-end markets, the gap in user numbers between it and Kuaishou may gradually widen.
Business model: At present, it seems that Douyin's monetization method is healthier, while Kuaishou, which has had huge traffic early on, has not made any major breakthroughs in its commercial monetization model and only relies on information flow advertising. Douyin has made more attempts in its business model and has achieved certain results.
4.1.2 Meeting the Challengers
The first challenger: The popularity of short videos has prevented other giants from giving up this market. As a latecomer, Tencent Weishi was also expected by Tencent to challenge Douyin, and Tencent provided 3 billion yuan in subsidies from April to August. But at present, the number of users has not seen explosive growth after the subsidies have been passed, and the arrival of celebrities cannot bring in fixed and loyal users. Weishi is also the product most similar to Douyin, which also proves that it is basically impossible to shake Douyin's position by using Douyin's method.
Challenges that continue one after another: After Weishi, Tencent continues to explore short videos in various niche areas: Yoo Video, Yintu, Xiafan Video, MO Voice, etc.; in addition to Tencent, each company is launching its own short video APP; in addition, not only independent APPs, but also various social media APPs have gradually added their own short video sections, such as: Weibo, Tencent Video , NetEase Cloud Music , Inke Live , Momo ...
Summary: Douyin currently relies more on content. Facing various external challenges, it may need to focus more on forming its own community culture and strengthening the connections between users in order to enhance its irreplaceability.
4.2 Own Challenges
4.2.1 Content purification
The more traffic a platform carries, the greater its social responsibility. In July 2018, Douyin advertising was required to be rectified and suspended due to poor supervision. Not only advertisements, but also user-generated content needs to be regulated, which involves legal issues, ethnic differences, religious beliefs, etc. If the supervision is not strict, it will become a big problem in development. Currently, 170 Internet police units across the country have also entered the Douyin platform.
4.2.2 Anti-entertainment
The immersive and stimulating user experience and the 15-second short videos constantly stimulate people's excitement, making many people watch it for several hours without realizing it. Many users will report that they feel particularly empty after watching Douyin for several hours. Because after a short period of excitement, we have to face the dull life again, and when we try to recall what we just watched, we often can’t remember clearly.
Self-media have begun to persuade users to leave the "toxic" Douyin. Although Douyin has launched reminders for long online time and an anti-addiction system, the most fundamental thing is to solve the feeling of emptiness after watching Douyin.
V. Conclusion
As the number of users changes, Douyin’s product positioning has also correspondingly changed to “Douyin, recording a beautiful life”. In the future, when there will be no large-scale growth in the number of users and external competition continues, the future direction is:
Focus on continuing to improve social functions, strengthening relationships between users, and truly forming a social closed loop;
Achieve sustainable and good commercial realization;
Strengthen supervision of content to avoid the emergence of harmful information;
Explore new business models and shoulder more social responsibilities.
Author: boyblue, authorized to be published by Qinggua Media .
