How will WeChat, Tik Tok, and Weibo play in the second half of the Internet?

In my opinion, content operations must grow together with platform rules. Let’s take a look at the recent changes in the rules of major mainstream platforms. I will also update the platform rule observation articles from time to time.

To become the platform's child bride and grow up with the platform

Today I’m going to share some changes in the mechanisms of WeChat Official Accounts , Tik Tok , and Weibo platforms. The following content is non-official data, but purely based on my personal experience gained from immersing myself in each major platform every day. It is for reference only and does not provide guidance for pitch strategies, but it can be used as a topic of bragging to the client and peers, such as euphemistically transferring it to a group chat or Moments to hide your achievements and fame.

/ WeChat public account creators IPization/

At around 10 o'clock today, WeChat revised the article page of the official account. This is a small adjustment to the front end following the major revision of the backend last month. In general, clarifying the attributes of individual "authors" is in line with Zhang Xiaolong 's remarks on strengthening the weight of creators in his WeChat open class. I made a picture to compare the new and old article pages, which looks clearer.

Quoted from the original words of the revised version of the official account of "Zhang Xiaolong's Speech at the 2018 WeChat Open Class":

"The coordination with Apple has made us think more. We think we need to reform our author system. In the previous public account system, we did not treat authors as an independent unit. In our new revision, praise will be given to authors rather than to a public account. So you can imagine that in the public platform in the future, you will see that authors are an independent column. We will see the introduction of each author and the articles he has published in the past. An author can contribute to different accounts, so authors will be restructured with more attention by us."

what does that mean?

This means that the official account platform will treat the official account and the author as two independent identities. It is also a detailed division of labor for the people behind the platform after the official account is saturated. The operation of the public account is responsible for growth, the content author is responsible for creation, and the operation and the author are responsible for division of labor and cooperation. This time, the author's display weight is increased, and a window is opened for the creator's IP. Some people complain that the current layout is not good-looking. Looking good is never the most important thing in tactics. I can make a bold assumption. According to Zhang Xiaolong's vision, will the public account become like this in the future:

Align the author with the original work, and make the "author's name" an independent hyperlink. After clicking, the following display will appear:

This picture is purely based on Qian Long's assumptions and is for reference only.

You will see that the author is an independent column. For each author, we will see his introduction and the articles he has published in the past. An author can contribute to different accounts.

The like gesture has changed from the thumbs up to a heart. Is this a preparation for the official account to focus on short videos ? Currently, Moments and WeChat groups consume 10-15 seconds of video, while Tencent Video consumes 30-180 minutes of program and movie content. 5-10 minutes is a blank area on Tencent Video. I am looking forward to what will happen if the official account + Weishi are combined into an ecosystem.

But then again, Zhihu columns have a similar logic, with one author contributing to multiple columns, but it does not bring the author any " traffic " or "monetization" benefits. Zhihu columns have not yet established a submission mechanism. I am looking forward to Zhang Xiaolong bringing some benefits to creators, like mini programs to programmers and official accounts to creators. This is not something that marketing accounts that make a living by plagiarizing can do.

/ Positive energy on the Tik Tok platform /

The Douyin platform has gone through a lot of twists and turns since I wrote "An Analysis of Douyin Operations of 24 Brands , including NetEase, Xiaomi, Alipay and Haidilao ". Its links were blocked by Weibo and WeChat, it became a showcase of fake goods, and its Toutiao-related jokes were permanently shut down. Today, ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming dissed Ma Huateng on WeChat Moments for plagiarizing Douyin. It seems that the public relations of the big guys has risen from PR to PS level. What changes have taken place on the TikTok platform recently?

1. With the changes in Tik Tok, the overall content style has become more positive, and the proportion of UGC accounts is more likely to be recommended by the time stream than before. That is, the probability of seeing content with more than 10,000 likes is greater than that of seeing content with hundreds of thousands of likes.

2. As long as your content is recommended by the timeline, likes, fans, and comments will come in like a tide, and you will feel like you are at the peak of your life. However, if you are not recommended, it will be useless no matter how hard you shoot or plan. As a result, many accounts post 50-100 pieces of content, but only one piece of content has been played more than 100,000 times or recommended by the time stream. After so many years of decentralization, humans have once again been pulled back to centralization by algorithms in the distribution of short video content .

3. Corporate Blue V accounts are more severely restricted by Toutiao’s algorithm than before. If there is a corporate logo or voice mention in the video, the account will be downgraded and the content will be deleted. In serious cases, the account will be reset.

4. Start shooting directly, upload videos, and enter the Douyin dance machine. Although there are three entrances for publishing videos, the traffic given by Douyin for the published content is different.

At present, it seems that their order from large to small is: enter the Douyin dance machine > start shooting directly > upload the video.

5. However, if your account is an account supported by Douyin, such as Yichan Little Monk, Yeshi Brother, Papi Jiang, various celebrities, and government accounts, such as Beijing SWAT, even if the content is uploaded, as long as it is recommended, millions of likes and fans are not a dream.

6. Follow each other’s Douyin accounts, and if the other person likes a post, it will be automatically recommended to your timeline.

7. If the content is in line with the brand tone of TikTok, such as trends, black magic, etc., you can @TikTok Assistant to be recommended to the timeline.

Just as I recommended in the series of Douyin operation and maintenance articles I wrote, in the early stage of the platform, post 2-3 posts per week, and perform fine-grained operation and maintenance on each post. In simple terms, this means recommending fans to like, comment, follow, and share. Rich accounts can join Douyin and purchase advertisements, which is also a shortcut to becoming famous. If you want to be famous but don’t want to spend money, you will have to spend ten times more time producing content.

/ Microblog platform forumization/

Weibo is an old platform, but in the new era, it is still full of vitality. Weibo as a whole is not like before, a communication platform that focuses on forwarding to friends in the circle. Since last year, it severely suppressed Toutiao accounts (marketing accounts with tens of millions of followers), vigorously supported small and medium-sized V accounts (hundreds of thousands of followers), and carried out in-depth development of comments. What changes have taken place?

1. The timeline Weibo forwarding function has been added with [Fast Forward] and [Send via Private Message]. Fast Forward is one-click forwarding, reducing the number of forwarding steps. Private messages are sent to Weibo friends to increase friend interaction. This function is especially necessary for star-chasing fans. They can forward idol updates to friends as soon as possible and gossip for half an hour.

Celebrities and accounts that only post on Weibo and do not maintain comments will be in great danger. You are walking on the edge of a cliff without knowing it. Accounts like Huohuashe, Pan Yueming, and Haier are all very good at commenting, and they are good examples for everyone to learn from.

2. You can comment, like and send emojis under the comments. Qian Long proposed a new term, called "the forumization of Weibo platform" . Colleagues who have used forums should know what the forumization of Weibo means. The overall number of fans is no longer increasing. Through topics, discussions, social networking , channels, and full-level cultivation, the user's time is further occupied. Especially in the second half of the Internet , this is the foundation for social platforms to survive.

3. Comments will be pushed by Weibo APP. This is also a strategy for Weibo platform to be forum-based and to deeply cultivate users after de-dissemination. It is still playing @repost three friends. This kind of fission communication is outdated and not welcomed by the platform. A forwarding does not have as high a weight as a like.

4. Weibo has an automatic topic adding function for posts containing [ IP traffic hot words ], which is called [Fresh Things]. Fresh Things is Weibo's aggregated content consumption platform that can collect and share any Weibo posts you see. Those who have used Jike should know that Weibo News is based on the RSS subscription recommendation logic of Jike.

The gameplay of Weibo News and the detailed introduction are shown in the figure below.

Display of new things timeline - What are the benefits of new things - Create new things form.

Use UGC to contribute to new things and aggregate more interesting information.

If you are still creating and brushing topics, do you feel that you are not as influential and easy to be on the list as in the past two years? It’s not that the platform is old, but that your way of playing is too old. If you don’t pay attention to the changes in the platform, you will be eliminated.

5. The classification columns of Weibo topics are manually controlled, instead of relying on popularity to rank them as before. Topics are rotated every hour. After manual control, Weibo topics are basically celebrity entertainment, positive energy in the circle, and government information. These are the three major contents. Few interesting things can be seen on Weibo before.

Like the recent major war of words "Tencent has no dreams" and Zhang Yiming's diss of Ma Huateng, most people first saw them in WeChat groups or Moments, and then posted them on Weibo.

Okay, that’s all for today’s observation of platform rules.

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

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