How to conduct UGC operations for different types of products?

UGC , user generated content. Since the first time UGC was used in forums/communities after entering the web2.0 era, to this day, Internet products have more or less some UGC attributes.

UGC, user generated content. Since the first time UGC was used in forums/communities after entering the web2.0 era, to this day, Internet products have more or less some UGC attributes. Some exist as core functions, such as community products like Tieba and Douban ; some exist as auxiliary function modules, such as the comments of NetEase Cloud Music ; and some are extended from the core functions and run through the entire product structure. For example, WeChat , from Moments to official accounts to message areas, all have UGC.

The birth of UGC has made the forms of Internet products richer and more interesting. Users are not just users of products and passive recipients of content, but have become participants in products. Products that introduced UGC early on and began to pay attention to user "expression" have actually embraced a gold mine, because these "large", "free" and "original" contents have brought good data-level value to the products, whether it is traffic , user stickiness, and orders.

Common UGC products generally conform to the following operating structure:

Operation structure of common UGC products

For UGC platforms, the first two indispensable and most important roles are content producers and content consumers .

In the middle is content distribution that relies on product mechanisms . A good content distribution mechanism allows content to flow fully between producers and consumers. Achieve precise matching between content and personalized user needs to meet the demands of content consumers; at the same time, provide instant feedback to content producers (user level, likes, comments, appreciation, sharing, attention, etc.; product level, inclusion in special topics, homepage appearance, exposure in core resource positions, etc.), and motivate them to continue producing content through the attention and recognition of others. New users’ content production can be given more exposure opportunities.

The periphery is the operating mechanism , which mainly uses human intervention to promote content production and consumption, making the entire UGC operation ecosystem healthier and more sustainable. The first is to operate the core users on the content production side, helping them to build personal potential + monetization and feed back to the platform; the second is to operate daily hot topics/activities to drive the transformation of ordinary content consumers into producers (this is the basic skill); the third is to extend the life cycle of the content through the integration and processing of high-quality content (the prerequisite is to establish standards for high-quality content), and achieve the purpose of attracting more content consumers and brand communication through secondary dissemination.

The close cooperation between products and operations will enable UGC to operate in a healthy manner, and under the catalysis of time, jointly convey the content tone and community atmosphere of the product.

At the same time, due to different product types, there are some differences in the corresponding UGC content types and key driving factors. This article will focus on 5 different product types and combine the current cases that the author has seen to briefly summarize and analyze their operations in the UGC production-distribution-consumption chain . If the analysis is biased or incomplete, please feel free to comment.

UGC operation methods for different types of products

● UGC type: interactive comments

● Representative products: NetEase comments, WeChat public account messages

● Key driving factors: information content quality & uniqueness, comment atmosphere

● Operational ideas: content positioning + daily operation incentives + high-quality content integration

1. Establish content positioning and tone

As a comment at the end of the article, the content has different characteristics depending on the topic of the article, for example:

● Opinion type : often seen on controversial topics, such as the WeChat Moments article "20 million people in Beijing are pretending to live" in July, which was widely read. The comment section was divided into two teams, which was interesting in itself.

● Story-telling type : The "Evening Prayer Moment" at the end of the article on the New World WeChat public account is like a "bait" for soliciting submissions. The comment section always features stories of young people, which are sometimes more exciting than the article itself.

● Jokes : McDonald's changed its name to Golden Arches, netizens commented wildly, and jokes such as Kaifeng Cuisine, Golden Tornado, and Shaxian International emerged;

It can be seen that the "attitude" positioning that NetEase has been advocating for its comments is in line with the first characteristic mentioned above. This is also because for a long time, the number of comments on social news information in NetEase News has accounted for the highest proportion, and the comments on this type of information content are usually related to opinions and views. The tone and culture of products and content mainly depend on the positioning of the content. Information products should establish distinctive content positioning based on their own product characteristics. "Stories", "imaginative thinking" and "fun" are all acceptable.

2. Daily operation incentives

(1) Topic and event operations

Take advantage of hot events or controversial topics to mobilize users to participate in producing comments. If you want better results, it is best to pair it with prizes, which can be physical or virtual rewards. In addition to the highest award, NetEase's annual Mid-Autumn Festival "Full Moon Poetry Contest" also offers rewards such as "Poetry in One Step", which is also a special honor in the hearts of NetEase users who have been nurtured and grown up in the poetry culture.

(2) Encourage article authors to respond to user comments

3. High-quality content integration and related producers

Although the comments are short and concise, they are full of valuable flashes of wisdom. By mining valuable content, forming special topics or special columns, and recommending them to core operating positions, the "residual heat" of the content can be brought into play. For example, NetEase's featured columns such as "God's Comments Group", "Second Floor Law", "High-rise Building Supervision Office", and "Everyone Answers Everyone" are well-known to users and have formed a certain number of user fans.

When integrating and presenting content, it is necessary to expose the content producers at the same time, associate the content value with "people", form a personal attention effect, and thus stimulate the motivation of content producers.

Summary : Comments are a very lightweight type of UGC and are not suitable for heavy user operations . By doing a good job of content guidance and maintaining a good tone and atmosphere, avoiding becoming a place for emotional venting and content dilution, and preventing user loss, healthy growth can be maintained.

● UGC type: pictures, texts, dynamics

● Representative products: Douban, Jianshu , Zhihu, Tieba

● Key driving factors: atmosphere maintenance, core user activity, and high-quality content presentation

● Operation method : Establish community culture + topic activity operation + high-quality content producer operation

1. Establish content standards and shape community culture

Cultural atmosphere is the "character" of a community, and it is the key words that people think of when they mention the name of the community. For example, "literature and art" to Douban, "life-oriented" to Tieba, and "technology fever" to Xiaomi Community, it will attract users with similar personalities. Atmosphere does not emerge naturally; it requires a set of community management standards (commonly found in product help centers) and continuous, long-term operational maintenance.

Zhihu has insisted on an invitation system since its launch in 2011, laying the foundation for the atmosphere of a high-quality question-and-answer community. It opened registration in 2013, and latecomers were influenced by the atmosphere and did not need too much education, and they "stayed within the rules." In addition, Zhihu's long-term restraint and patience in commercialization has enabled it to maintain a serious, professional, and friendly community culture to the outside world.

2. Topic activity operation

Hot topics are like "cutting leeks", cutting one batch after another. If a community wants to attract popularity, it must take advantage of hot topics, or organize activities by offering attractive prizes to mobilize user participation.

Douban provides a large number of group topic exchanges, local activities, etc. around books, movies and music. The topics are in line with the characteristics of the user group of literary and artistic young people. Therefore, you can see a relatively large amount of high-quality UGC by clicking on it.

Douban Topics

Similar to this is Jianshu, where the focus picture on the homepage is always an endless stream of essay writing competitions, community activities , and brainstorming competitions, and the themes of the activities are unconventional. Whenever you open the homepage, there is an opportunity and space to participate in creating UGC. The most famous one is the "Mana Turnaround" competition previously organized in collaboration with Meizu Mobile Phones. It not only contributed good content to the platform and triggered a word-of-mouth effect, but was also a "star-making" event that allowed good content players to stand out.

The Jianshu Activity Selection topic contains more than 190 activities

3. Operation by high-quality content producers

Core users are not just the top big Vs , but also a large number of small and medium-sized Vs with long-tail fans. This is especially important for content communities. Establish a user pyramid , operate in layers, and avoid centralization.

Jianshu's content producer user stratification provides targeted operation strategies from [contracted authors - recommended authors & editorial team - high-quality authors - general authors], and combines platform resources to build an "upward channel" for users.

Jianshu content contribution user pyramid

It can be seen that Jianshu's user operation does not involve a high cost, but instead cleverly utilizes product operation leverage, uses manual review and screening of high-quality content, exposes and recommends it in important resource positions of the product, and stimulates the author's creative motivation by transferring scarce resources. For example, Jianshu's [Homepage Contribution] gives newcomers and good content the opportunity to be exposed, which has a kind of "addictive" magic; the editor-in-chief team, who exist as volunteers, not only invests in traffic resources, but also invests more in emotional operations.

Summary : The essence of community products is still the quality of content based on positioning. To avoid content dilution, excessive content junk, and information noise, the operating mechanism should reflect the inclination of resources towards good content/good authors.

● UGC type: questions, answers

● Representative products: Baidu Knows, Zhihu, Wukong Q&A, Fenda

● Key driving factors: Question response efficiency, number of high-quality answerers, number of high-quality answers

● Operational ideas: Expand/motivate high-quality answerers + daily topic/activity operation + high-quality answer packaging

1. Expand/motivate high-quality answerers

Q&A is actually a knowledge sharing product, which has relatively high requirements on the professionalism of the answerer. Therefore, big Vs have become a battleground for question-and-answer platforms. If you want to expand big Vs from outside, it is recommended to expand big Vs with high similarity based on product positioning and content tone, otherwise you may not be able to adapt to the local environment, and the content produced may not be "suitable" for users; it is not recommended to invite celebrities, as the content produced by celebrities is unstable, and it is not recommended to "spend a lot of money to poach people". Although the poaching of 300 big Vs from Zhihu by Wukong Q&A at the end of August this year attracted attention, the short-term burning of money cannot be sustained. The answerers are concerned about the traffic dividend of the new platform. As long as they can provide the accumulation of personal potential energy, it will naturally attract high-quality answerers to settle in.

In addition to external expansion, the platform should also use product/operational means to discover high-quality answerers, and conduct identity identification (excellent answerer identification) and targeted recommendations. For example, Zhihu's unique "thank you for the invitation" culture can reflect Zhihu's emphasis on mid-level experts, and Zhihu attaches great importance to the protection of the copyright of original content.

To continuously motivate answerers to produce, it is necessary to provide them with monetization methods. Zhang Jiawei once said that Zhihu is good at "sparking the flame (i.e. content creators)", but is not very good at protecting and keeping the flame. We can see the efforts Zhihu has made in content monetization. For example, its paid knowledge product Zhihu Live has more than 2,000 speakers, with an average hourly wage of over 10,000 yuan. At the same time, Zhihu also brought more than 300,000 in royalties to many users. However, the monetization path for Zhihu's "big Vs" is still being explored.

2. Daily topics/activity operations

The official operation excavates and creates hot topics, invites high-quality answerers to answer online, and triggers users to ask questions and watch discussions. The more representative one is Zhihu. The online Zhihu roundtable (online guest discussion) and the annual offline Zhihu Salt Club have become word-of-mouth activities.

3. Question aggregation and high-quality answer packaging

If a certain amount of high-quality UGC emerges on similar issues, they can be integrated into special topics, which will also be a great incentive for content producers. Zhihu does the best job in secondary packaging of content. In addition to the good content based on popularity + manual recommendations under the Discovery tab, the regularly produced Zhihu Daily, Zhihu Weekly (e-books), publications, etc. are all accumulation of high-quality content. Distribute through channels such as WeChat, Weibo, and apps (Zhihu Daily) to achieve secondary dissemination and brand effect.

Zhihu Weekly: High-quality Q&A aggregation

Summary : For question-and-answer products, people are the core, so the focus should be on operations for questioners and answerers, and stable monetization methods should be provided for answerers, but user-centrism should be avoided. At the same time, we also take into account the packaging of high-quality answers to highlight the professionalism and content quality of the platform.

● UGC types: reviews, shopping reviews, shopping guides

● Representative products: Dianping.com, Xiaohongshu.com , Taobao product reviews/Ask everyone

● Key drivers: content quality, quantity, credibility

● Operation method: Establish content standards + operate interactive incentives + secondary processing of UGC

1. Establish content standards

The value of UGC for e-commerce products is to help consumers make purchasing decisions, so there are relatively high requirements for the richness and credibility of the content. For example, JD.com 's reviews and order sharing must exceed a certain number of words to obtain JD beans; Dianping.com must meet the requirements of 100 words + 3 pictures or a 20-second video to be certified as a high-quality review and receive points rewards. Both of these are done to improve content quality as much as possible through product mechanisms.

From an operational perspective, especially during the cold start period, a more "strict" set of content review and screening standards is needed to ensure the content tone and conduct user education. Xiaohongshu's official account will send private messages to users to suggest changes to their notes. The official account also often shares some high-quality note-writing and photography skills, and publicly discloses screening criteria. The "high-value" notes in the Xiaohongshu homepage feed also serve as a good demonstration. In short, product evaluation is a form of UGC with a relatively low threshold. Products and operations should cooperate with incentives to moderately raise its threshold and create a high-quality sharing atmosphere.

Xiaohongshu Official Note Writing Guide

2. Operational interaction incentives

Regarding motivating user UGC, in addition to providing product level points, operations can regularly organize shopping sharing theme events, using interesting activities or prizes to "push" users to output content. How to get users to proactively contribute to UGC is essentially about giving UGC a sense of value.

First, introduce interaction between users, allowing UGC users to obtain feedback from others/merchants, including but not limited to "like", "comment/reply", "helpful", "collection", and "share". Second, label users and classify heavy commenters as "experts". Focus on them by recommending attention or rewards, orders, advertising revenue, etc., to encourage them to produce higher-quality heavy content, such as highly professional reviews and shopping guides that can bring order conversions, thereby amplifying the value of users.

3. Secondary processing of UGC

When the object of UGC is some products with high decision-making costs (high unit price, diverse choices, and professional barriers), consumer users will have higher quality requirements for UGC. In contrast, most e-commerce products, although they have sorting and screening based on single or comprehensive indicators, UGC will inevitably be rough and result in low information content. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce PGC components. But the difficulty here is that you need to strike a balance between PGC and UGC, and it is best to combine them cleverly. For example, some Taobao merchants will post screenshots of user reviews on the product details page, because UGC is obviously more authentic and credible, while PGC can improve the content quality to a higher level.

Summary : The purpose of UGC for e-commerce products is to promote order conversion, which has a very direct utilitarian color. Around this goal, the means of operation will naturally pay more attention to the conversion rate of content. Therefore, we must always return to the quality and credibility of the content to avoid a large amount of useless false information that delays user time and affects user experience .

05 Conclusion

Among the many operational branches, UGC is one that particularly tests operational skills. This article is just a general discussion, and the details faced in actual implementation will be more numerous and specific. Although it is difficult, it is worth investing in it. The charm of UGC lies in its ability to "create user value". In the process of "fighting" with users around content, you will constantly break your own little world and even learn a lot from users, and grow more. I hope to have the opportunity to listen to UGC colleagues share their feelings (a sincere call from the depths of the soul).

Source: Liaoliao Dimension (ID: liaoliaociyuan)