WeChat , with 1 billion users, has long been at the top of the App list and has been the talk of the town in the social world .

Unfortunately, most of its "godsons" are hopeless. Some time ago, Weishi relied on WeChat to divert traffic, which attracted countless users' scolding. Some people jokingly called Weishi a piece of mud that cannot be helped.

WeChat Pay , the "godson" , has its entrance directly integrated into WeChat, allowing it to enjoy all of WeChat's personal connections at the first opportunity. Although it has developed well, it is undoubtedly a group that relies on its parents for support.

"Godson" WeChat Reading , according to iResearch's "2018 China Digital Reading Industry Case Study Report", as of the end of 2017, the total user scale of the digital reading industry was 380 million. Excluding the number of Apple users, WeChat Reading accounted for nearly 1/3 of the users.

How did WeChat Reading, this neglected "godson", develop on its own?

Recommend content based on social media

Home page recommendation is an important means of retaining users through content.

Currently, the homepage recommendations of major apps are nothing more than popular recommendations and algorithm recommendations, such as Zhihu’s hot search list (popular recommendations), and algorithm recommendations of Toutiao , Douyin , etc.

WeChat is quite unique in its recommendation approach, as it uses social recommendations. This is a relatively rare recommendation method on the market. It has also been verified by WeChat Reading and is indeed a great way to retain employees.

Currently, WeChat has two main forms of social recommendations:

1) Books on the Discovery Page

The homepage plays an extremely important role in retaining users through content, so all major reading software will make adjustments to the homepage, competing to recommend the best books on the platform in the hope of arousing user interest.

But the homepage of WeChat Reading is very different, it focuses more on social interaction. Although you can also see books, they are basically books that friends read.

You can see what books your friends are reading, which friends are reading a certain book, and how many friends are reading a certain book in this app.

For example, if I see that more than three friends are reading a certain book, I can't help but click on the book to see the details (I believe many people will also be interested in what books their friends are reading).

In addition to the use of social networking in "What books should you read", the WeChat reading page also quietly embeds social networking when you are reading a book.

You will find a small human head in the upper right corner of the screen with a number on the right.

When you click in, you can see how many people are reading the book on the same day.

Moreover, how long these people have read, what their current progress is, and how many notes they have produced are all presented in the form of cards.

By showing your friends' reading progress, you will feel that you are not alone in reading, and it may also increase your reading time invisibly.

2) Keep ideas as a column

In addition to tampering with books, WeChat Reading's other function of using social content to retain people is ideas, and it has been singled out as an entry point.

The idea page plays the core function of content social networking, it is like the " Friends Circle " in WeChat Reading.

First of all, when you open the app, there will be a small red dot on the idea label to remind you that your friends have posted new reading status. We who have been well trained by the "Circle of Friends" will habitually check it.

Of course, the idea page of WeChat Reading is not as diverse as that of Moments. Each content unit is composed of friends’ reading ideas + quoted content + books.

We can click on a book to view its details, click on a quoted content to view the corresponding chapter, and forward, like and comment on ideas.

If someone likes my idea, WeChat Reading will notify me, which in turn arouses my desire to express my ideas.

Secondly, in order to prevent friends from producing insufficient content, the idea page appears empty. WeChat Reading also displays the chapters of books that our friends have only liked, attracting us to check them out.

In addition, WeChat Reading has secretly added "advertisements" to the idea feed , in the name of recommending big book friends (readers who read for a long time or get a lot of likes), so that we can pay attention to the active users of the platform.

The main content of the above idea page is to integrate and recommend the content produced by acquaintances (friends).

But don’t think that’s the end of it. During the reading process, WeChat Reading will recommend the ideas of strangers.

After each chapter, you can see two buttons: Like and Comment. Click on the comment button to see other users' thoughts on this chapter, and these thoughts can be further liked and commented on.

When it comes to each page, each paragraph, each sentence, and even each word, we will see dotted underlines from time to time while reading.

By clicking on these highlighted contents, you can see other readers' ideas presented in the form of cards, and you can also like and comment on them.

WeChat Reading provides multi-layer interactions (acquaintances + strangers) for ideas, and through these interactions, it encourages users to produce more content.

Because when many people read a book alone, they may just absorb knowledge without thinking too much, but after seeing other people's ideas, they will have their own thoughts and then make comments.

User retention based on social media

Compared to general reading software that "almost only" retains users through content, WeChat Reading has a killer feature: retaining users through social interaction with acquaintances based on the WeChat relationship chain.

The reason why this trick is so effective can be traced back to a data proposed by LinkedIn. If you have just entered an app and can connect with 5 friends within a week, the app is more likely to keep you.

WeChat Reading takes this theory to the extreme. It not only "kidnaps" you through your friends, but also recommends "strangers" with common interests to you, retaining people through interest circles.

1) Friends List

Most people think that the purpose of a friend list is just to know how many friends you have.

But the friend list set up by WeChat Reading is a magical existence. It retains people by "promoting friendships".

Its composition is also quite unique: WeChat friends (acquaintances) + book friends (strangers).

First of all, when my WeChat friends join WeChat Reading, WeChat Reading will force us to follow each other (without my consent).

Once we become friends, what books I read and what comments I make will be seen by my friends.

In this way, we are bound together invisibly and stay on WeChat Reading to "observe each other's dynamics."

Secondly, WeChat Reading also binds me and my “book friends” together.

Book friends are strangers who get to know each other through ideas. Each idea can see the corresponding user. Clicking it will take you to the user's homepage. The homepage information includes avatar, gender, region, personal profile, reading information, etc. There is a big "Follow" button below.

You may think that these "strangers" can play a role, but don't underestimate them. Friends who follow each other based on reading interests appear to be more "like-minded" and form a strong relationship chain in WeChat Reading.

2) Friend Ranking

If the friend list retains users by "promoting user affection", then the friend ranking retains users by "letting users fight each other".

At the same time, friend ranking is also a powerful weapon of WeChat Reading, which ranks users' reading time in a week.

Every Monday, the homepage will push your ranking of the previous week. If you have been reading for a long time, you can share it with one click to show off.

In fact, allowing you to show off to your friends may not be the real purpose of WeChat Reading. Its purpose is to let you compete with your friends, which will invisibly increase the time you spend reading books in the app.

How to say it?

Many people actually prefer to compete with their friends and will pay attention to how long their WeChat friends read every week.

If the other person spends a long time reading, you will force yourself to read on the App even if you don’t like reading; if the other person doesn’t spend a long time reading, people with whom you have a better relationship might even laugh at you.

Next, you will find a like button next to the duration. The function of this button reminds me of WeChat Sports.

In addition to giving likes to the top few people (to show admiration), I also like to give likes to those who only walk a few dozen steps a day (to show contempt).

How do these lagging students feel when they receive my likes? There will definitely be some people who are not convinced and go back to WeChat to read.

WeChat Reading also provides a recall button, and users can recall friends through the rankings .

After clicking the recall button, the recalled friend will receive a Push message, "xxx invites you to come back and read together."

Of course, if the only way to retain people is through "competition", many rankings have this function, so WeChat Reading has come up with some new ideas.

The time you spend reading can be exchanged for book coins. Every half hour of reading can be exchanged for 1 book coin, and a maximum of 10 book coins can be exchanged in a week.

In this way, you can spend more time reading, be at the top of the list and be admired by everyone, and also get book coins to buy new books. Why not do it?

Recall users based on social media

Most apps nowadays have adopted the means of material "recall" to some extent, and WeChat Reading is no exception.

However, most apps recall users through Push notifications, informing users how much reward they will receive if they return.

But now many people have turned off Push, and the recall rate through this channel is not very high, so WeChat Reading focuses on using Moments to let your friends inform you that there are rewards for returning.

For example, I haven’t used WeChat Reading for a while, but I always see people sending WeChat Reading red envelopes (the red envelopes are book coins) in my circle of friends.

As an old user, of course I know that book coins can be used to buy favorite books, and it is not easy to get book coins. However, WeChat Reading is giving them away for free this time, so I might subconsciously click in to receive them.

Once I receive the book coin red envelope, WeChat Reading will ask me to use the book coins and inform me that I have free books to receive.

At this time, it used Push to remind me again because I had been successfully recalled. Don’t you think WeChat Reading is a thief?

First, through my friends in WeChat Moments, I once again fell into the trap of WeChat Reading. Then, through constant push notifications and more free benefits, I was locked firmly in WeChat Reading.

Summarize

As reading tools under Tencent, both have social genes, but WeChat Reading’s methods of retaining users are much more sophisticated than QQ Reading.

Today's article will not elaborate on QQ Reading. Here is a brief summary of WeChat Reading's social-based user retention methods:

1) When recommending high-quality content (books), leverage social connections to focus on recommending books that friends are reading, so that users will join the reading community out of curiosity or competition.

2) Set up an "ideas" section similar to the Moments function to update friends' reading "ideas" in real time, so that users can feel the motivation of interaction and continuously output high-quality "ideas" content. The premise of outputting "ideas" is that users must continue reading.

3) Include all social friends (acquaintances + strangers) in the reading time ranking list, and update the ranking list in real time to encourage users to extend the time using the product through comparison.

4) When users recall their books, WeChat Reading uses channels such as WeChat friends and Moments, combined with benefits such as book coins and red envelopes, to increase the chance of recall.

Source: Operation Research Society (ID: U_quan)