How to do content operation well depends on these 8 details!

This article mainly shares the author’s valuable, correct and systematic content operation methods in the process of building a new media matrix . This article will teach you, as a new media practitioner, how to quickly operate vertical industry content through 8 dimensions, and create explosive articles with millions of readers on self-media platforms such as Toutiao , Dayu , Sohu, and Sina . In addition, I will share 2 Easter eggs and teach you a little trick to reduce the unfollow rate. At the same time, I will tell you the algorithm logic of Toutiao's hot article recommendation.

Content Operations Step 1: Understand the Industry

The more vertical the industry is, the more discerning the readers are, and the higher the requirements for professional content, so when you are involved in a brand new vertical field, the first thing you need to do is to understand the industry.

Vertical forums and domain-specific accounts are two quick ways to understand an industry.

The biggest feature of a vertical forum is that the content is professional enough. For example, when I planned to create a car matrix account, my daily routine was to visit forums such as " Autohome ", "Bitauto", and "Autohome" to see what the hot topics and posts with high top and like numbers were about, as well as what the car friends on the forum were discussing.

In addition to studying vertical forums, you also need to study the big names in the field. After all, there must be a reason why the big names are doing so well.

The current openness of data also makes it easier to study big accounts. Through the ranking functions of Xinbang and Qingbo Index , you can filter out big accounts with a high degree of overlap with you. The overlap here includes user overlap and content overlap. Then, crawl articles with a historical record of 3 months to analyze the topic direction and user preferences.

Of course, there is another very important detail, that is, whether you are studying a vertical forum or a big account in a field, you must study with questions and thoughts, and then make a summary.

If you spend many days on the forum and read many big accounts, but still only have a superficial understanding, then it can be said that it is a waste of time.

Content Operation Step 2: Understand New Media Platforms

After understanding the industry, you need to understand new media platforms.

The new media platforms mentioned in this article are divided into two categories: mainstream media platforms and vertical media platforms.

Mainstream media platforms include the well-known WeChat public accounts , Toutiao, Dayu, Yidian Zixun, etc. Although these self-media platforms each have their own advantages and disadvantages, it is recommended to deploy them all in order to maximize traffic .

In addition to mainstream media platforms, we must not ignore vertical media platforms, because the fans of this type of platform are very accurate and loyal, and can be called "seed fans."

So what is a vertical media platform?

For example:

• If you want to create a car account, you must understand the rules of Chejiahao (a media platform under Autohome) and Yichehao (a media platform under Yiche.com);
• If you want to create an e-commerce account, you must understand the rules of platforms such as Taobao , What’s Worth Buying , and Xiaohongshu .

By analogy, you can think about which media platform rules you should understand in your current job?

Content Operation Step 3: Scientifically Select Topics

Many new media operators complain that it is difficult to find topics. Today I will teach you 3 ways to find topics to solve the problem.

Three major sources of content selection: own positioning, competitors, and user needs .

1. Positioning

That is, look for topics in the vertical field of the account's positioning. The content selection must be consistent with the platform's positioning, and don't follow the trend.

For example: If the public account is positioned as a fitness teaching account, it needs to continuously and focus on sharing fitness knowledge instead of pushing fitness videos every day. However, many new media operators may not know how to do a good job of positioning. Here we use examples to teach you a simple method of positioning.

When you need to position your account, there are two quick paths: segmenting the target user population and segmenting the industry (product).

Still taking the car account as an example:

• The target user group's needs can be segmented into: learning to drive, buying a car, changing a car, and selling a car.
• The target user groups’ hobbies can be segmented into: off-road, supercars, modifications, and self-driving.
• Automobile products can be subdivided into: SUV, MPV, luxury cars, new energy vehicles, sports cars, pickup trucks, etc.

Each of the above sub-segments can be used as the positioning of automotive accounts.

2. Choose topics through competitors

Simply put, it is a large-scale article with high data performance in the analysis field. The operation can be divided into 3 steps: account collection + article screening + material library analysis.

Account collection: collect your industry competitor accounts through third-party ranking platforms (Xinbang, Qingbo Index, etc.) and official rankings of various media ( Toutiao , Sohu, etc.).

(PS In addition to the above lists, some of the content recommended to the APP homepage is also good. You can click on the article and then go to the homepage to view the historical articles.)

After collecting competitor accounts, you need to start data analysis . The basic operation is to crawl historical articles in batches (generally analyze for 3 months first) and filter out high-quality articles based on data performance (number of readings, number of comments).

(PS The reason for setting two dimensions is to filter out articles that fake reading volume as much as possible, because it is meaningless to analyze the data of such fake accounts.)

3. Choose topics based on user needs

Three ways to understand user needs: Baidu Index, hot topics and direct feedback.

Through Baidu Index, you can know the information about trend research, demand map, information attention and crowd portrait in your industry.

(PS Just search for "Baidu Index" and log in to your Baidu account to use it. It's not difficult. This article will not go into details. There are a lot of detailed tutorials online for those who don't know how to operate it. There are always some that you can understand.)

Hot topics are usually what we call " marketing by taking advantage of the situation". Hot topics are divided into: "foreseeable hot topics" and "sudden hot topics".

• There are many "foreseeable hot spots" in each month's marketing calendar. Just search Baidu and you will find them.
• "Breaking hot spots" usually start on platforms such as Weibo and Zhihu. There are two principles for chasing such hot spots: do not chase negative hot spots and do not chase hot spots whose indexes begin to decline.

The above are all indirect ways to understand user needs. Of course, you can also directly obtain user feedback through some operational techniques .

For example: the official account pushes the "Q&A" session specified in the settings, collects questions on a fixed day, and answers questions in a centralized manner on a fixed day.

If you have your own fan community , the way to reach users will be more accurate and the cost will be lower. The community, WeChat private chats and Moments are all channels for you to get feedback.

Content Operations Step 4: Create Differentiation

In an era where everyone is a self-media, content homogeneity is a more obvious problem. Creating differentiated content can help you effectively seize users' reading time.

1. Differentiation of content attributes

Content attributes can be divided into text, pictures, audio, video and other forms of expression.

How to create differentiated content attributes?

What the enemy does not have, I have.

When many public accounts were focusing on pictures and texts, "Ye Ting" and " Yi Tiao " entered the market with the attributes of audio and video respectively, and " Tongdao Dashu " insisted on using comic IP to produce content, which means "I have what the enemy does not have."

2. Differentiated content style

The differentiation of content styles is relatively easy to understand. For example, when we were planning to create a public account for car reviews, we analyzed many top domestic accounts and found that the styles of different car reviewers were very different.

• There are some that talk about cars seriously, such as: No. 38 Car Review and Y Car Review.
• There are people who talk about cars in a funny style, for example: 90s Talks about Cars and Li Laoshu Talks about Cars.
• There are also those who create "female driver" IP to talk about cars, such as: Play Car TV and Car If You First See It.

If you are not familiar with car reviewers, let me give you another example. When everyone was making short videos , "Office Xiaoye" successfully broke through with his creative and imaginative style.

3. Differentiated entry points

Generally speaking, based on the entry point, they can be divided into: practical , opinion, information, review, experience, interview and collection articles.

During the broadcast of a popular movie " In the Name of People " last year, many articles with over 100,000 views and different entry points were produced.

Content Operation Step 5: Build a Material Library

When doing content operations, you must develop the habit of building a material library. A good material library can achieve twice the result with half the effort.

The material library is recommended to include the following:

1. The hot article library contains the hot articles of your account and your competitors' accounts.
2. Title library, you can write down all the titles that you can't help but click, whether they are articles related to your industry or not.
3. The picture library contains high-definition copyright-free pictures. If you are sued for picture infringement, it will be very hurtful.
4. Tool library, including new media operation related tools.
5. Glossary: ​​You should write down the definitions of specific terms in vertical industries. This is a very good way to improve your professionalism.
6. The random thoughts library is mainly used to record some inspirations.

Content Operation Step 6: Careful Typography

Good typography can also increase the number of followers of a public account.

Here are some basic points of typesetting for your reference.

Content Marketing Step 7: Eye-Catching Title

I have compiled 9 formulas for popular titles for you, and I will explain them in detail below.

1. Questioning

This type of title often uses question words such as "how", "how", and "why", and can refer to the common Zhihu style.

For example: "How to chase the goddess in one month", "How can boys be cute", "Why can't I transform into Ultraman even though I have the Ultraman transformation device? 》.

2. Contradictory

Such titles often create contradictions to make them seem counterintuitive.

For example: "I just recently discovered that Crayon Shin-chan is gay", "She started writing songs at the age of 13 and became a director at the age of 15. The love songs written by this post-00s girl make me feel that I don't understand love at all", "After one year in the industry, he has increased the number of users to 1 million without spending a penny".

3. Benefit-oriented

This type of title usually paints a rosy picture for users, with clear benefits and suspense created.

For example: "This WeChat code can test your relationship with others", "A 10,000-word article will increase your followers by 5,000+ after reading it", and "5 kinds of thinking weapons that copywriting masters won't tell you."

4. Concrete

This type of title usually makes time and numbers concrete to eliminate readers' doubts and reduce their psychological burden.

For example: "The popular documentary on CCTV breaks the hearts of those born in the 80s and make those born in the 90s cry", "The new media training camp is limited to one day and only for the first 100 participants", and "From a monthly salary of 2,000 to a monthly salary of 20,000, you must master these 6 tools to improve operations."

5. Free

This type of title is suitable for event promotion . After all, most people can’t resist “free”.

For example: "One year store anniversary, Chanel, Adidas, and YSL are all free! ”, “1,000 snack stands for free, no time to explain, get on board! 》《1,000 free tickets, let’s have fun! 》.

6. Sugar Daddy

This type of title usually uses political and business leaders and top companies for endorsement, and is more commonly used in practical and opinion articles.

For example: " Jack Ma 's 10 pieces of advice for entrepreneurs ", " Zhang Xiaolong's internal sharing: We only do one thing, and the product has only one positioning", "A domestic god-level web drama with a score of 9 on Douban, I would feel guilty if I don't recommend it to you".

7. Hotspot

This type of title is often seen in articles that follow hot topics, because hot events bring their own traffic.

For example: " LeTV employees' self-narration: Why haven't I quit LeTV yet", "Wolf Warrior 2: It's so beautiful, how dare you complain about it? ", "33-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo, with a 23-year-old body: How terrifying are self-disciplined people? 》.

8. Novelty

This type of title usually describes new things or new topics, giving users the feeling that “most people don’t know”.

For example: "In order to explore the true meaning of Supreme , I went to all the Supreme physical stores in the world", "Tencent officially reveals: revealing the secrets of WeChat group control", "The old hacker told me after hacking into the backend that selling chicken-eating plug-ins can make millions a month! 》.

9. Two-stage type

This type of title usually describes the content in the first part and highlights the features in the second part.

For example: "After studying 500 articles with over 100,000 views, I summarized these 9 writing routines", "I have used dozens of cushions and summarized the 10 best ones! 》《After eating at these 10 hard-to-find small shops, you will be at the top of the food chain》.

Content Operation Step 8: Posting Time

For public accounts, you can directly use the "Hourly Report" function of the WeChat public platform to analyze the active reading time of your fans.

For self-media platforms such as Toutiao, based on my team's practical experience, 9:00~12:00 and 15:00~17:00 are time periods when users are very active in reading, and explosive articles are likely to be produced.

2 Easter eggs

Finally, I will give you 2 more Easter eggs.

1. Tips to reduce the unfollow rate

There was a time when my team was troubled by the problem of "high unfollow rate". Later, we tried to insert content-related voting interactions at the end of the pictures and texts in the official accounts, and the "unfollow rate" dropped significantly.

After some analysis, there are probably two reasons.

• First, users who participated in the voting interacted with you and obtained positive feedback;
• Secondly, users may forget to unfollow after participating in the vote.

In short, this is indeed a very effective method we have tested to reduce the unfollow rate.

(PS You can use the voting function that comes with the official account, and there is no need to use a third party.)

2. Toutiao’s hot article recommendation algorithm logic

Many new media operators have asked me how to write popular articles on Toutiao. Today I will share with you the logic of Toutiao’s popular article recommendation algorithm.

Generally speaking, when a user posts an article or video on Toutiao, Toutiao will first check for duplication and filter out old news.

If you can pass the plagiarism check, the number of first-level recommendations given by Toutiao will be similar. At this point, you and other creators are on the same starting line.

After that, Toutiao will decide the level of second-level recommendations for your article based on the data feedback from the first-level recommendations. The gap basically starts from the second-level recommendations. Each subsequent level of recommendation will be based on the data feedback obtained from the previous level of recommendation, until the algorithm believes that your article is no longer worthy of recommendation.

(PS data feedback items include: article reading volume (video playback volume), number of comments, number of reposts, number of favorites, bounce rate, etc.)

Million-level hit articles are often directly pushed to the front page of Toutiao after multiple levels of recommendation, gaining a lot of exposure.

The above is the content operation methodology that I have summarized from the actual practice of new media. I believe that after reading this article carefully, you can also quickly create explosive articles in the vertical industry and become an operator with a monthly salary of 30,000.