The most practical seed user operation method

I have been wanting to talk about the seed user operations before the product goes online for a long time. I have been holding it in for a long time, and now I can finally talk about it. Let’s briefly talk about the operation of seed users before and after the product is launched.

Here are the sharings of three operation masters:

The first expert: Where is Shiny running?

1. How to introduce seed users before the product goes online?

Before the product is launched, the users introduced can only be placed in the group first. There are two ways of introduction: invitation and recruitment. Invitation is by "request", recruitment is by "attraction". But from the perspective of operational execution, it is very important to package a project that attracts users based on product functions and present it in a form that users are interested in.

2. How to manage seed users after introduction?

Step 1: Build an organization

Because there are no products, we can establish a virtual organization, set group rules and announcements, entry thresholds, member rights and daily activities, and tell everyone about the products that will be launched in the future. It makes people feel that this is a serious, organized and standardized matter, with a sense of ceremony, and not something done casually, so they will take it more seriously.

Step 2: Plan your event

In preparation for the next step of user introduction, a gimmick is needed to attract the other party to join. You have to think of a good reason to get others to join. After all, just creating a group is not very attractive. At this time, you can organize some activities in the group, which are gimmicks. There are two types:

·Benefit type. For example, in the "Must Die" competition, you can participate in the selection by submitting your work to the official (because the product is not online yet), and the top three will receive shopping cards, cash coupons, etc., or red envelopes, which are purely profit-oriented.

Attract with privileges. What is communicated to users is that they will become the first users or VIP users after the new product goes online and will be able to enjoy several privileges. Using "trying new things" as a gimmick can attract a group of people who are interested in new things and are experts in each field. Perks can be packaged even without substantial functionality. For example, "green channel privileges, direct communication with officials", "priority processing of orders", and " Taobao 's lightning refund" are what every product can do in the early stage of launch.

Step 3: Invitation copy

Find out the platform where your target users are located, such as finding big Vs on Weibo, finding Internet industry practitioners on Zhihu, etc., write a short, clear and sincere invitation copy, and send it to users one by one. You don't need to say too much or introduce your name. After saying hello, get to the point quickly. Briefly tell the other person what they need to do and what they can get . Make sure your sentences are fluent and unambiguous, cover all the factors that the other person is concerned about, and try not to ask questions a second time.

·For different users, you can slightly change the copy. Users are not stupid. Many of the people you are looking for may have been invited many times before, and they will be able to tell at a glance from the mass message copy. The most important thing is not to make mistakes in writing key information such as name, title, gender, etc.! Don’t let people know at first glance that you are sending a mass message, as that would be boring and insincere.

Step 4: Optimization and adjustment

All of the above links will encounter many problems during the actual operation process, which is normal and needs to be continuously optimized and adjusted during the implementation process. Some links have a lot of room for optimization.

For example, when we are introducing users, we use two different copywriting to send messages to the same group of people to communicate user feedback, what users responded to, what they are worried about, what they don’t understand, and so on. Learn from experience, avoid shortcomings, then revise the copy, adjust the release time, reorganize the target audience, etc. Because all these measures are just expectations, the feedback from every small step is particularly important because it is real.

3. How to keep the group active?

Step 1: Management

As the community recruits new members, you can start building a management team. A management team should, first of all, be people who strongly support you and your product; secondly, have time; and thirdly, be people who are good at communication, have high emotional intelligence, and can withstand pressure.

Management team composition:

·Manager, you are the "founder" of this group, and the administrator is the "professional manager". In the future you will definitely have to gradually retreat to the second line, and the group will be managed by him, so you have to start helping him build up his prestige and voice.

·The organizer is responsible for daily event planning . He should be a creative, active and interesting person, and his writing skills must also be strong.

The Q&A person is the administrator’s assistant and right-hand man. The biggest workload in the group is answering questions. Every time a new person comes in, the question answerer is responsible for breaking the ice and solving any questions at any time.

Step 2: Be Active

The difficulty of the seed user group is "no product, just chatting". If users feel that there is nothing to do, they will gradually become less active, and even after the product is launched, it will be impossible to convert them.

Topic discussion

The members of the group are gathered together because of a common attribute, so they must have the same hobbies, which is the most attractive point. You can initiate a topic discussion every day, with one user responsible for selecting topics and sharing. Share your own views first, then raise questions and guide everyone to discuss. This is just like the “check-in” feature on many products, allowing users to say a few words every day and slowly develop a habit. In this way, members of the group will gradually become familiar with each other, cultivate a community atmosphere, and more importantly, have a deeper understanding of the products and brands .

Polls

Which of the following features do you most want? By guiding users to participate in this kind of survey with a low threshold and adding a few screenshots, you can gradually cultivate users' awareness of the product. Through some guidance or option settings, we should be able to find a way to ensure that the feature with the most votes is in the version that is about to be launched, so that users will feel more involved. How can we not support a product that users themselves have participated in designing?

Online activities

Based on the core functions of the product, some online activities are initiated, but they cannot be implemented on the product. Instead, they can be implemented through other forms. For example, the core function of a movie app is to write film reviews. You can initiate a film review writing activity with prizes and send your submissions to an email address. This can be achieved. There are many ways to implement it live, QQ group forums , Tieba , and public accounts can all be carried out, and the operation is also convenient. The advantage of online activities is that users are making similar contributions before the product is launched. Once the product is launched, it will be easier for users to contribute and they will have a natural liking for the product.

The above three methods can be transformed into various different activities. The time should not be too long. With the assistance of the management team, the desired effect can still be achieved.

4. How to operate after going online?

Direct your seed users to the newly launched products. The normal situation is that users are like hungry birds, opening their mouths to ask you for the download link of your app. There are a few things that need to be done:

Training. After the new product is launched, it is still relatively unfamiliar to users, even though they have seen the UI before. Therefore, we need to constantly answer questions in the group and train them on how to use and operate it.

Collect feedback. You can collect the usage experience, suggestions, complaints, and approvals of seed users and submit some feedback.

The second person: Wheat

For a startup product, solving the cold start problem is a problem that needs to be solved after product positioning. Especially for social products, users are the core. There is no doubt that the number of users is part of the operational considerations, but any user operation is a balance between quantity and quality, which is especially important in the cold start phase. Every step should be taken cautiously, otherwise you may fall into a trap.

For start-up products, seed users should be divided into three categories:

Category 1: Founding Team

Yes, the first batch of users of the product must be the team members of the founding team, and of course their aliases (at least 10 per person). During this process, on the one hand, the product’s functions and processes need to be repeatedly verified, and on the other hand, the website’s information architecture and content need to be improved. This is the step that sets the tone for the entire website

Category 2 : Initial seed users

After the first step of website verification and basic information architecture is completed, the product needs to undergo a small-scale user verification.

At this stage, the selection of target seed users is important. Basically, the following requirements need to be met

1. The target users of your product or sufficient understanding of the target user group of your product

2. Have smooth communication channels and provide timely feedback on product opinions

3. Be patient with your product

In this round, user selection is extremely important, because before the product is officially promoted , it is necessary to discover as many product problems as possible in order to quickly iterate. At this time, the cost of product error correction is the lowest.

So where do we find the initial seed users? On the one hand, it must be from friends and colleagues around you. On the other hand, when doing product demand analysis and positioning in the early stage, you will definitely contact a large number of target users (if not, your needs are likely to be deviated). After establishing certain communication channels, these users can be called the initial seed users of the product, or even future core users.

Finally, you can contact relatively active users in areas where target users gather (either online or offline), such as forums and QQ groups, and make targeted invitations.

If it is a content-based social networking site, another important task at this stage is to invite users to fill in information content in order to obtain a better user experience .

The third type of seed users in the operation period

The first two stages can be called the testing period, and this stage is the operation and promotion period. This period is the beginning of the product cold start, and a certain number of seed users are needed to verify the product from quality to quantity.

In fact, I am more in favor of the invitation mechanism of products, especially social products. Slow operations in the early stages can often help products have a more stable foundation during the later explosive period.

At this stage, the source of seed users partly comes from the recommendation of initial seed users, and the initial product promotion is carried out through the so-called six degrees of personal connection. I personally think this method is relatively safe. Another method is to promote users through high-quality content (accumulated in the first and second stages).

The above two points are what I think are relatively effective ways to obtain high-quality seed users. Of course, other user promotion models are not excluded.

During user operations , the cost of obtaining user opinions will increase with the increase in the number of users. In the second stage, product managers can communicate with users smoothly, but at this stage, user voices are likely to be drowned out by the noise. Therefore, at this stage, it is necessary to start some data analysis work to make up for the problems caused by poor communication.

In general, the seed user operation of a product should be carried out step by step according to the rhythm and in coordination with the content operation of the product. Avoid taking big steps and causing trouble. I believe that the more stable the first step is, the smoother the next step will be.

The third expert: hailing

All startups will face the problem of how to acquire early users.

1. At the tactical level, what are the ways to obtain

1. Mobilize all employees of the company to attract users

Mengmengda is a social APP with exchanging photos as its core experience. As the founder, the first method that Yin Zhiping thought of was to mobilize all the employees of the company and let them attract users. His requirements were that the CEO should recruit one thousand people, partners should recruit five hundred people, and each employee should recruit one hundred people.

So how do you, as a CEO, achieve the target of 1,000 people? Yin Zhiping first mobilized all his relatives and friends, and then invited a group of "beautiful users" such as flight attendants, models, school beauties, and Taobao girls through social media such as Weibo. After all, it is a social product, and this group of "beautiful users" can bring in a large wave of early users. Then among this group of users, quite a number of them thought that this APP was fun and interesting, and they shared it again. Finally, it was spread secondary by 300 people, and finally the task of attracting more than a thousand people was completed.

2. Flexibly utilize existing Internet platforms and channels

On the second day after Mengmeng went online, Yin Zhiping submitted the product to NEXT, and it became the second-ranked product on NEXT that day. As for the effect, the data Yin Zhiping saw in the background was that one user was added every minute during the day and one user was added every two minutes at night. In this way, the number of 2,000 users was reached in less than two days.

In addition, you can also use Baidu Tieba , Douban groups, Sina Weibo , and major forums to publish content in a targeted manner. Since only the iOS version is currently online, please go to Baidu iPhone Bar, WeiPhone and other platforms to post. In addition, you can also sign contracts for the first release on some channel platforms, which can also bring in a lot of traffic , such as various jailbreak markets for iOS.

3. Perform resource replacement

For example, iPhone has a certain number of users every day, but you and others are not the same users. At this time, you can find an APP with similar traffic to promote each other, but the effect is average. Therefore, Yin Zhiping recommends exchanging the amount of advertisements: "If I have 6,000 fans, and they ask me to post an advertisement for 4,000 yuan, I will ask others to pay 2,400 yuan. I will need more than 800,000 yuan a year, but I own this account and can post advertisements without spending money. Secondly, I will find a big account with a similar number of fans to post advertisements. I don’t need to spend money because we exchange every day. I post ten advertisements every day, four of which are my own content, and I give four to others. In this way, everyone’s volume is equal. This method can be very effective without spending a penny."

4. Pay attention to current events and cleverly use popular events for promotion

One of the channels for discovering current affairs hot spots is Baidu Index, and another is Weibo hot searches. Yu Jiawen of Super Course Schedule was very popular some time ago, which directly led to “Post-90s CEO” becoming a hot term. When Yin Zhiping was interviewed by the media, he deliberately asked to include keywords such as "post-90s CEO" in the reports, which greatly increased the chances of being exposed.

2. Strategically, learn to understand and operate the value of early users

Huang Tao, product designer at Zhihu, explained from a strategic perspective the value of understanding and operating early users. The key point is that "word-of-mouth communication is the most effective way to cold-start a community product."

1. To acquire seed users, community products must answer three questions:

1) As a community, what is your user value?

2) Where are your users?

3) How to complete the product closed loop?

●As a community, what is your user value? In a broad sense, "content" refers to what is generated by users. For example, YouTube generates user feedback and suggestions, which are inputs into user value and are also part of the content. For example, user comments, user participation in public editing, and answering questions are not contributed to the system in the same clear way as articles, but these things increase the overall value of your system, and that is content.

For other products, you can also think about what your content is. For example, whether your user interaction itself is content produced by you. Users come to your place to do something together and organize activities together. These activities will not form black and white marks.

●Where are your users? In fact, as an entrepreneur, you must understand your seed user group better than others. You must know where your seed users live, what the upstream and downstream relationships of the entire activity are, and where the boundaries of activities are. If you cannot understand this better than others, you must think about whether you are more suitable for this product.

●How to complete the product closed loop? This is a very simple matter, and it is not a killer product. If this problem is solved, the product will be successful. It means that in your design, you must make sure that users will eventually come back to your product. For example, before launching their first product, many people will consider whether they need to polish the product enough before launching it, and whether they need to make the product complete enough before launching it.

In Huang Tao's opinion, it is not necessary to make a product very well, and there is no need to worry about whether the product fails after it goes online, wondering whether it is because the product was not well made or because the thing itself was wrong. At this time, the most important thing is to see whether a closed loop has been formed and whether some simple loops have been formed so that users can get timely and effective feedback when they start using it. If the feedback has been realized, it depends on whether the feedback has met expectations and whether there are some new difficulties in these feedbacks that were not foreseen in the past.

2. From 0 to 100 users

●Think clearly about what word of mouth is and what it is not;

●The founding team must be active users of the product;

●Find seed users from your own surroundings;

●Provide high returns to each seed user.

3. From 100 to 10,000 users

●Keep close contact with users;

●Mobilize users’ emotions;

● Expand the closed loop and design the communication channel;

● Concentrate resources and create focus;

●Exercise restraint in operations.

As the user base continues to expand, word of mouth = the cold start of the community product. So going back to the starting point is how to do word-of-mouth marketing and how to cold start the community through word-of-mouth marketing.

●In the early stage, you must actually use your own products. This is very important for entrepreneurs . Do not get involved in areas you do not understand. You know who the users are better than anyone else, so only then should you get involved.

●It is important that operational behavior should eventually be replaced by user behavior . Compared with foreign companies, Chinese companies focus more on operations and less on products. There are some ways to quickly gain profits, but if you don’t exercise restraint, the user’s incentive mechanism will be plundered, and finally because of your rapid expansion, you will not be able to continue due to internal pressure.

● The communication path that exists in the closed loop of the report product must be continuously enlarged. We must find ways to expand the scope by involving more fields, and then expand the scope further through larger fields. Everyone knows that Zhihu Daily is actually trying to form a closed loop, allowing the user groups that the author originally did not reach to read it, and after reading, they will eventually return to the community. These users are very sensitive to feedback. They can pay attention to this more keenly than anyone else. Once the closed loop is formed, it will be completely different.

● Take advantage of people’s fear of social isolation, because when a small circle is discussing things and you are not paying attention, a certain sense of community fear is formed, and you will pay attention. I don’t know if you have a yearbook. It’s when you graduate from junior high school and high school. There’s not much content in it. Everyone talks and writes. It’s very interesting to look through it after a long time. Why do people do this? Because everyone feels isolated if they don’t have a yearbook, this is a phenomenon that exists in any product.

Finally, how to get it back and maintain good reputation? To have a good reputation, your product details must be sufficiently carved and polished. You cannot rush to promote and market it when the product is not mature or the experience is not good enough. The tolerance for failure within the product reputation is also very high, because each expansion is within a circle, and it is repeatedly exposed in this small circle, so there is no need to worry if it does not do well at the beginning.

The author of this article @应用公开课 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games