In-depth forecast for the second half of 2018 new media: growth panic, traffic depression

This article predicts the trends of new media in the second half of the year, which mainly includes three parts: industry section: including content, traffic , platform and monetization, and the rest are enterprise section and personal section. enjoy~

In "Explosion", Joi Ito describes the future world as having three characteristics: asymmetry, uncertainty, and complexity.

This is even more true in the new media era, where a small account can suddenly jump to 100,000+ followers, and a large account can suddenly be blocked. Under the traffic system, new media is becoming more and more complex and interesting. Judging from the actions of WeChat and other companies this year, 2018 will undoubtedly be an extremely important year of change in the next five years . Next, we will interpret the impressive new media events in the first half of the year and make predictions about the trends in the second half of the year.

This article mainly includes three parts: Industry section: including content, traffic, platform and monetization. The rest are for enterprises and individuals. The total number of words is 7,500 and it takes about 15 minutes to read. The following figure shows the structure of the article:

1. Industry

1. About the content

(1) Content is, in a sense, a high-risk industry that needs to be based on correct values. Baozou Manhua, Ergeng Canteen, and Neihan Duanzi have all crossed the line and been blocked. Content entrepreneurs can grow from 0 to 100 through their own efforts, but they may also be wiped out in an instant.

(2) Relying solely on machines to review content will not be effective at this stage. From Facebook to Kuaishou , the solutions at home and abroad are the same. If machines can’t do it, people will have to fill in.

(3) Content is still a "stock market". Stock refers to excellent creators. The difference between a good author and an ordinary one is not 0 and 1, but 0 and 10.

(4) The benefits of public account content have not passed. In the early Age of Discovery, most practitioners were “old Chinese medicine practitioners”, authors like Liu Shenleilei, Mimi Meng , and Rebecca, many of whom came from print media.

The current logic is the intensive cultivation logic, which I call the content product-oriented model, which is more like Western medicine. The starting point has changed from: what can I output? to: what users want, and provide differentiated services. Creating content is more like creating a product. In the early stages, the team uses MVP for trial and error to find PMF, which is the user's Aha moment.

The fashion account "Hong Pangpang" incubated by Mimi Meng first collected 5,200 pieces of data through questionnaires, covering 10 large groups of 500 people and 2 groups of relatives and friends of 100 people. At the same time, it conducted in-depth interviews with 200 people to ask fans what they need and care about. Finally, we found a breakthrough form of real-life comics and amateur transformation, and the opening rate reached 40%.

It can be predicted that there will still be breakthroughs in treating content as a product.

(5) This year is a decisive year for short video content platforms. From the sudden popularity of TikTok to Tencent’s launch of “Eating Videos”, “Quick Videos” and “Time Short Videos”, Weibo has also launched “ Aidong Short Videos ”. It is foreseeable that the benefits of short video content will be further released in the second half of the year, and the production of short videos by companies will gradually transition from being a bonus item to a necessary option. Sometimes the bonus period is right here, and it depends on whether the company can overcome this hurdle. It requires the courage to try and fail.

(6) WeChat’s original label does not strictly conform to the media’s definition of originality. There are endless cases of plagiarism, from the quarrel between Shen Leilei and Zhou Chong on the sixth day of the Chinese New Year to Tencent's withdrawal of investment due to poor reviews . The copyright protection and compensation cycle is long, and it is difficult to confirm ownership, so the industry has no good solution. If we want to solve this problem, the traditional Internet is unlikely to work, and we may have to rely on blockchain applications in the future. Currently, the source of negative reviews will be marked at the bottom of the article, which will gradually become the standard for big accounts.

Figure: New citation chart for negative reviews

(7) Users are becoming more and more discerning, and the display logic of public accounts now makes it very easy for them to unfollow. Once attention is paid, it is necessary to achieve the expected output stably, but it is difficult for individuals and small and medium-sized organizations to maintain high output. It is foreseeable that many accounts will reduce the update frequency.

(8) The phenomenon of clickbait titles will be gradually controlled, but how to come up with a title is still a science. There are even agencies on the market that specialize in creating titles, which first conduct A/B tests on a large number of users on certain apps.

2. About traffic

(1) This year is the year when many big names “come out of micro”. After reaping the benefits of WeChat, some of the top companies started to develop apps for reasons of data, business expansion, security, and many other factors. However, in the past two years, ByteDance has been frantically competing for market share, and the cost of downloading the APP has skyrocketed. The actual CAC is much higher than that of a WeChat follower. The effectiveness of the micro-road will be known by the end of the year.

(2) As there are fewer ways to play with subscription accounts , personal accounts and communities are becoming more important. But the focus has shifted, communities have begun to differentiate, and fission communities are close to being destroyed in some vertical fields, but there are still dividends in some fields. The conversion -based community is the key point . The community-based business model has been successful . Take Baby Playing English as an example. It uses part-time distribution and has an average customer price of around 2,000 yuan. At the beginning of the year, its monthly revenue exceeded 30 million yuan.

(3) In terms of personal accounts, software that can increase the number of followers became popular in the first half of the year, allowing users to directly add everyone in the group as friends. But it was found to be difficult to unblock. It is expected that the crackdown on WeChat will intensify in the second half of the year.

(4) Offline traffic is not as easy to obtain as imagined. This year, some big brands have tried to open offline stores, but not many have been successful. It is more of an auxiliary traffic + brand effect. Cooperation with offline merchants is another form, but it requires strong control over resources and good distribution of benefits. The best of them can be found in Fan Deng Reading Club .

(5) Offline ways to increase followers include tissue machines at the beginning of the year and weight scales. For some industries, such as local accounts, accepting advertisements is still an effective method, but it is basically not applicable to vertical fields. With the entry of big players, the unit price of fans in these channels will gradually increase.

(6) Fission tools , such as Jianqunbao and XiaoU Guanjia, have been attacked one after another. If companies want to increase traffic, they still have to build their own fission system. You can refer to the U-alliance system built by GSX to develop Gaotu Classroom’s business with tens of millions of traffic.

(7) Fission, especially the fission of the Moments , has a very good effect, but this is not the ecosystem that WeChat wants to see. WeChat's two core content entrances, the community, have begun to show signs of chaos due to the impact of Pinduoduo, games and other mini-programs . The Moments are flooded with marketing posters again. WeChat will strengthen the rectification of marketing pollution in the Moments in the second half of the year.

(8) The gameplay of public accounts is tight, which means that there are no new methods of explosive growth in the market. It can be understood as an activity with a very large short-term fission coefficient K value. Even if it comes out, it will be blocked by WeChat, similar to the three-level distribution of Xin Shixiang . A steady and long-term approach will become the safest choice , similar to the check-in approach of Mint Reading.

(9) As the growth of subscription accounts weakens, service accounts are re-emerging in another form. The logic behind the rise is that, on the one hand, the gameplay of service accounts is diversified, for example, Wifi fans are mostly completed through service accounts. It is expected that the growth of service accounts will continue to be very rapid in the second half of the year.

(10) Due to the current dispersed nature of traffic, it is difficult to associate it with user behavior . For public accounts for e-commerce or product purposes, a WeChat CRM system will be established to classify users according to tags, etc. to achieve automated marketing and tailor-made services for each individual. This will be the focus of WeChat marketing in the second half of the year and beyond. Some third-party manufacturers in China have tried this, and some super large ones choose to build their own. For example, when two people receive push notifications from the Qianliao public account on the same day, they receive different messages.

Figure: Qianliao pushes articles

(11) We have already tried to increase the overall volume of Moments at the beginning of the year. Currently, under Tencent’s advertising system, only Moments can be increased on a large scale. The ROI is especially good for local businesses such as weddings, education, etc. In the second half of the year, more and more companies will target WeChat Moments.

(12) Mini Programs are one of the few traffic hubs currently, and the focus of growth will gradually shift to Mini Programs . The mini program serves as a starting point and then directs traffic to communities or official accounts. For example, "Lin Qingxuan Reading Club", one of the fastest-growing public accounts this year, gained over 5 million followers in just a few months.

Image: Screenshot of Lin Qingxuan’s reading club app

The core logic is as follows:

1. Large IP traffic can be used repeatedly. This time it was Lin Qingxuan. There are also many big names who will return in another way.
2. Integrate offline resources, including libraries, education bureaus and other resources. Complete the online conversion of offline traffic.
3. Through the “voting” method of the mini program, online traffic can be expanded again.

(13) In the design of growth, gamification will become the mainstream . Slack, the most popular company in Silicon Valley, and Pinduoduo, the fastest growing company in China, were both originally gaming companies. The core logic is the design of the user advancement system.

(14) Another traffic strategy is similar to Yunji Weidian , which is aimed at attracting customers from third- to fifth-tier cities. It can be understood as moving the original shopping guides online. After that, more and more manufacturers tried this kind of system to attract traffic. The core of this industry is still the 2/8 law , that is, 20%, or even 2% of people, attract 80% of the offline customers. The competition for KOLs will become more intense in the second half of the year.

3. About the Platform

3.1 About the reform of public accounts

(1) This year, the overall product iteration of WeChat has been much faster, and the WeChat team itself has also experienced growth. In the past, it took 1-2 years to develop a feature. This year we will adopt the strategy of taking small steps and making rapid progress.

(2) This year marks a year of major reforms for WeChat public accounts . The last time was in 2014. It is indeed time to change the official account. Accounts below the waist level are fleeing at an accelerated pace. In March this year, there were only 1.2 million public accounts that posted articles, a decrease of 300,000 compared to October last year. In the battlefield of time, under the impact of Douyin and Kuaishou, the active time of Moments is also declining.

(3) First of all, the service account has been given new importance, and the menu bar has been revised to more directly meet service needs. There should be more actions regarding service accounts in the second half of the year.

(4) The revision of subscription accounts in the first half of the year can be roughly divided into two aspects: for readers and for operators . For readers:

• “Friends’ Message” is launched;
• When the number of likes on a public account message exceeds 10, users will receive a notification;
• The reading style of the official account has been changed, and the like button has become a heart shape;
• The display format of subscription accounts has changed to become a waterfall flow.

The main purpose is to improve the reading experience , stimulate them to leave messages and interact, make the characteristics of social distribution more obvious, improve reading efficiency, and keep readers sticking to the WeChat system.

(5) For operators, there are several improvements:

• Typos can be corrected after the article is sent out, up to 5 words.
• The "Hot Topics" function is launched, and the entrance is at "Take a Look" and at the bottom of the public account articles selected as hot topics.
• The backend of the official account has been greatly revised
• The subscription account assistant APP is launched.
• The backend of the official account has been revamped, and the author's position in the style is more obvious.
• The "Click Party Detection" function is officially launched
• The reprint style has been revised and can be reprinted directly
• You can directly reward the author

For operators, the main focus is to empower them and give them more position exposure. On the other hand, by launching the APP and facilitating the posting of pictures and texts, the cost of creation can be further reduced, encouraging another wave of creators to be added to the existing system. It can be understood as attracting a wave of users from "Meipian" and " Jianshu ".

(6) From the perspective of the public account ecosystem, these measures, on the one hand, increase the volume of content, increase original content, and attract high-quality accounts. On the other hand, we need to eliminate low-quality traffic and make it easier for users to unfollow them.

(7) With the presentation of the new waterfall flow, the user path has undergone a qualitative change . Original user path: open account-open content. The current path is: Open content-enter account.

Figure: Schematic diagram of the new waterfall flow

In this case, the fan brand value is weakened and the value of the content is enhanced . This is also the original intention of the subscription account, which emphasizes content. In a pure subscription account system, fans have usage rights, not ownership rights . If you want to cultivate fans, you still have to combine social networks, service accounts, mini programs, etc. Or just make your own app.

(8) Of course, WeChat’s move is also to avoid being piped, laying the groundwork for later information flow advertising .

This can be understood as WeChat's nuclear weapon. For the fundamentalist Zhang Xiaolong , he will not use it unless he is forced to do so . Foreign companies such as Facebook mainly rely on information flow advertising for profit. Tencent’s internal executives previously said that they wanted to increase advertising revenue. At this stage, WeChat’s advertising revenue will still be mainly based on Moments advertising , and it will definitely not be used rashly this year.

3.2 About “Take a look”

(1) " We should not try to make Kankan another Toutiao . The past year was a stage of laying the foundation. In 2018, we will face real pressure. The pace of product development and iteration at Kankan will accelerate." This was an internal speech by Zhang Xiaolong in the first half of the year. It is said that the requirement is to iterate in small steps once a week.

(2) It is true that the iterations are very fast, with major moves such as the launch of “Hotspots in Moments”, but most of them are minor adjustments. The readability is much better than the same period last year, but it is still not a surprise. In Yu Jun’s user value formula: user value = (new experience - old experience) - replacement cost. At present, there is not much difference between the new experience and the old experience.

(3) Regarding “replacement costs”, most people are used to the model of WeChat Moments + external information apps (such as Toutiao). How can we reduce the pressure of replacement costs? We have already received feedback from users that the "Take a Look at the Selections" product in internal testing will be pushed directly to the message list.

Figure: Take a look at the revised screenshots

(4) In addition to the problem of the entrance being too deep, the real issue that needs to be addressed in “Take a Look” is the efficiency of the content. Judging from the updated entrance, the worst case scenario is to make it into a message list “ Tencent News ”, but this should be the lower limit. The final results will be shown in the second half of the year. But everyone may need to lower their expectations a little . Well, great innovation does not necessarily come from nothing. Just like what Luo Yonghao said when he released TNT, it counts if it can improve efficiency by 200%.

(5) This year, the transformation of “Search” has also accelerated. The most obvious change is that searching for certain keywords will jump to the JD product link. But at present, it is judged that the purpose of WeChat to create momentum for JD.com’s 618 event may be greater than its practical significance. As Ma Huateng said, Tencent only has two and a half businesses: social, digital content and finance. Tencent will not engage in e-commerce on its own. Firstly, it needs a strong supply chain and other management systems. Secondly, this kind of shelf-based e-commerce has a low conversion rate and is not the future of e-commerce.

(6) However, the ambition of “Searchy” goes far beyond this and it will become a major portal in the future. "WSO" will become more and more popular in the future. In addition to the direct service of the mini program, it is very important to name the mini program in advance if there are short videos later.

3.3 About TikTok

(1) If the core entry point of WeChat is the use of the mobile phone address book, the core point of Douyin is the use of the mobile phone and camera. The former represents social interaction, while the latter represents content and now a community model. If Douyin wants to transform into a social network, it needs to import or self-generate a large number of social relationship chains . Toutiao cannot help much in this regard. It is estimated that Douyin will have new product launches in the second half of the year.

(2) The current distribution and display model of Douyin determines the value of fans. Currently, the price for a Douyin follower is 3 cents, which is quite a big difference compared to the average price of 1 yuan for a reading on a public account.

(3) As ByteDance bets on TikTok, its daily active users will continue to rise. Weibo, WeChat and Douyin will gradually become standard in the second half of the year, and Douyin will gradually become one of the fermentation sites for corporate event marketing and brand marketing .

(4) At present, the effect of Douyin on enterprises is still focused on brand promotion , such as making "Answer Tea" and " Haidilao Eating Method" popular. With the integration of Douyin and Taobao , some micro-businesses will also move over.

(5) In the first half of the year, the method of spiral-boosting on Douyin was very popular, but those who took it too far were soon banned. We have to believe in ByteDance's technical strength, including the fact that it will become increasingly difficult to add a large number of people on Douyin.

(6) Compared with Weibo, which has only entertainment stars at the top, Douyin has many grassroots stars at the top. The strategy of combining good looks with talent will still apply, but the bonus period may end at the end of the year. Later, Douyin will usher in the MCN era.

(7) Tik Tok is still a traffic hub. As its user base becomes middle-aged, companies will have a wider marketing reach on Tik Tok . In the second half of the year, some Douyin operating companies will appear.

3.4 Mini Programs

(1) With the support of Tencent’s policies (such as opening up individual mini-games and live broadcast interfaces) and capital, mini-programs have returned to the main stage. According to Aladdin statistics, the daily active users of mini programs exceed 280 million, and the number of mini programs exceeds 1 million.

(2) Another core reason for returning to the main stage is that investors began to accept the concept of "WeChat Internet". WeChat has become an infrastructure, just like an operating system for PCs . The following figure is a summary of the 10 star startups in the WeChat ecosystem over the past five years in Chapter 42. Among them, Pinduoduo is about to go public in the United States with a valuation of 30 billion US dollars.

Figure: 10 companies in 5 years on WeChat, from the official account Chapter 42

(3) The current stage of mini programs is like the early days of apps . From this perspective, all previous apps can be “refurbished”. For example, the now popular "Draw and Guess" and others were all popular applications on QQ Space or Weibo in the early days.

(4) If you want to accumulate large traffic, you still need innovation. For example, "Xiangwushuo" uses the idea of ​​blockchain and the gameplay of virtual currency "Little Red Flower" to revitalize second-hand e-commerce.

(5) The early stage of the market is characterized by irregularities and chaos. It is expected that similar conflicts between Xigua Footprints and Footsteps Map will continue to occur.

(6) Previous illegal gameplay, such as voting and collecting likes, which were previously cracked down on by WeChat. There are many variants of mini programs, and they will continue to exist in the second half of the year. What needs to be done is that the traffic should be transferred in a timely manner.

(7) Retention of mini-programs is the most troublesome issue, and the biggest reason is that WeChat currently provides too few permissions. On the one hand, it can be partially solved through the matrix traffic pool. On the other hand, in order to promote the mini-program ecosystem, WeChat should also take some small actions , but the Moments sharing function will still not be opened in the short term.

(8) Currently, the ranking of mini programs is still dominated by games, e-commerce, tools, etc. The performance of reading-related mini-programs is still average at present, and some attempts have been made, such as Qingmang. The final result is hard to say, as it is still a question of user replacement cost.

(9) In September 2017, games accounted for only 4% of the top 100 mini programs, but in March this year, the proportion exceeded 33%. Among them, communities have become the entry point for explosive traffic. For example, "Pirates Are Coming" and "The Strongest Bomb" have appeared in many people's communities. Games are also the most clear direction for monetization. In the second half of the year, more and more tool-type mini-programs will be involved in games.

(10) For gamers, mini-apps still have dark clouds, one of which is the relationship between WeChat and Apple. In May, WeChat launched the Android in-app purchase function except for small games. Mini programs do not currently support virtual payments. This has dealt a heavy blow to courses and membership-based products.

(11) The second “dark cloud” is the intensity of WeChat ecosystem maintenance. In May, WeChat adjusted its sharing function, and developers could no longer know whether users had completed sharing. WeChat is currently also trialing and erroring in small steps, giving developers a bite of candy, and then slapping them in the face if it finds that people have gone too far. Developers need to pay tuition and grow together with the mini program products.

(12) There are still many ways to play with the mini program that have not been released yet, and they may be gradually opened in the second half of the year. Including live broadcast, stranger social networking, etc.

3.5 Others

(1) “In spring, ten Haizis all come back to life/In the bright scenery/They laugh at this wild and sad Haizi/Why have you slept for so long?” This was Haizi’s last poem before his death. In the first half of this year, many social applications began to revive, including Tencent Weishi , Tencent Weibo, Xiaomi MiTalk, etc.

(2) This year marks the seventh anniversary of WeChat’s launch, and no other social software has surpassed it. It is foreseeable that the social application that can compete with WeChat will definitely not approach from the perspective of address book. Momo approaches from the perspective of LBS, DingTalk approaches from the B-end, and Douyin approaches from the camera. There may be other possibilities, such as Soul trying personality tests.

(3) After the EU introduced the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the European version of QQ was taken offline in April. User privacy issues have received increasing attention abroad. This increases the difficulty of exporting localized social apps .

3.6 Monetization

(1) In order to increase LTV, diversified monetization has become a trend . E-commerce + advertising + knowledge monetization has basically become the standard for many self-media . There will also be different dimensions for exploring user value. This includes combining some offline scenarios, some local accounts, and starting to try some food cards in conjunction with local ones, which is also a good idea.

(2) There is no need to discuss whether paying for knowledge is a false proposition. A stable industrial chain has been formed at present, but since the beginning of the year, NetEase, Qianliao, and finally Xin Shixiang have made some troubles, the three-level distribution has been completely blocked. It is basically difficult to "create a storm", but it is possible to maintain a steady pace.

(3) In the knowledge payment market, there is still a large increase in users. In 2017, 168 million users paid for knowledge, and there will be explosive growth this year. Rather than finding users, large platforms are more worried about increasing attendance and renewal rates.

(4) If we want to do a good job in paid knowledge, the requirements for quality and supporting services will gradually become higher than the requirements for teacher fame. Famous teachers in the industry have already been poached, and the next step is to compete to see who is actually creating content and who is engaging in knowledge micro-business. I believe we will have the answer by the end of the year.

(5) Knowledge payment integrates education, publishing and media. The solutions we can see now are to either focus on the important work or simply move towards education, with the core being the acquisition of skill points. The second logic is to either make it light and lower users' expectations, similar to the knowledge planet model, mainly sharing some daily thoughts

(6) The soft-text placement market will become a red ocean, and a certain vertical industry with a lot of money is placing soft-text placements everywhere. Competition will be more intense in the second half of the year. The price of large sizes will rise further, and will also drive the commercialization of a batch of small sizes. However, if companies blindly increase the number of their advertisements in a short period of time, the gains may outweigh the losses.

2. Enterprise

1. Many companies only have a superficial understanding of new media growth. The essence of growth is the growth of performance, not simply the growth in the number of fans. In the second half of the year, more and more companies will realize this. New media that do not contribute to the company's performance will basically be in pain.

2. The underlying logic of new media is to deal with limited and simple problems, that is, in the web1.0 era, all you need to do is write good content. When it comes to dealing with disordered and complex issues, the explosion of content, and the blind man's groping in the dark with unpredictable hot spots, we try every platform. Up to now, we need to deal with orderly and complex issues and scientifically establish the entire new media system. The focus may still be on maintaining about three platforms and studying them thoroughly. The requirements for the capabilities of corporate new media managers are becoming increasingly higher.

3. The most difficult thing about an enterprise’s new media system is changing its mindset. New media is not a simple channel, and you need to consider carefully whether to migrate (part of) your business to WeChat. Here we need to distinguish two concepts clearly: what is WeChat entrepreneurship and what is new media operation . Similar to Uncle Kai telling stories, Baby Playing English is more accurately a WeChat startup.

1. Of course, for some companies, it is more difficult to change the new media from BCD (Boss Centered Design) to UCD (User Centered Design) thinking .

2. For a single growth strategy, the traffic effect will decrease over more than half a year. Just like what Silicon Valley growth guru Andrew Chen said, “The more you use it, the worse it gets.”

3. Personal

1. Two types of talents will be particularly popular this year, one of which is the growth hacker type. The logic of new media growth hacking is to create a continuous growth engine for enterprises based on new media platforms. It should be noted here that:

• Diversification of methods and channels
• Have a deep understanding of the business
• Continued growth

Growth hacker is an imported concept and a position that requires very high comprehensive abilities. Not only do you need to understand the product and some of the technology, you also need to be able to crawl and draw with Axure. You also need to know some basic growth tools and principles, such as AARRR model , user life cycle , A/B test, etc. Know how to place ads, measure and calculate ROI, and understand psychology, including the design of addiction models.

2. Another category is more product-oriented, such as content or community operation . Use products combined with data to reshape content and community. When creating content, use methods such as cluster analysis and NLP analysis to select topics and plan titles more scientifically. For example, a classmate of mine was working on community fission and found that many users would share fake screenshots in the group. He combined his own technology to create a system that can identify fake screenshots, which greatly improved the overall efficiency.

No matter what, go with the flow and run faster . As Alice in Wonderland said, "You have to keep running to stay where you are. If you want to move forward, you have to run twice as fast as you are now."

Author: Huo Huo, authorized to be published by Qinggua Media.

Source: Huohuo